Scars
by mentalist777
Summary: What if Naruto had been sent to the door of death after Valley of the End? Without knowing whether he will live or die how will his loved ones react?
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **Chapter 1**

 **The Plan**

Sakura waited at the gates waiting for the Sasuke retrieval team to come back. Ino was waiting with her and they hadn't talked much in the last few hours since Naruto, Shikamaru and the others had left.

As she looked Sakura saw a blur approaching, a flash of orange with it

 _'_ _Naruto!'_ she thought excitedly.

Only for it to fall when she saw it was Kakashi Sensei carrying him.

"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" she heard as Kakashi ran past. She was able to get a good glimpse of Naruto before they ran past her. What she saw was something she wished she hadn't.

Naruto was covered in blood.

His orange jacket that he loved so much had mostly been died a dark red.

She watched as her Sensei carried her teammate towards the hospital. After they were out of sight she burst into tears and fell to the ground, screaming Naruto's name.

Ino who had seen the same thing as Sakura and looked at her friend crying as fear filled her. Her mind drifted to her two teammates.

Shikamaru and Choji. Were they okay?

After shaking her head for a moment she walked over to Sakura and helped her up as they walked to the hospital.

She had to believe that they were okay.

When they got to the hospital a nurse escorted them to the waiting room near the ER. When they got there they saw Kakashi just standing in front of the doors that led into the ER. His flack jacket and hands were covered in blood.

Sakura wasn't trained in medical ninjutsu but even she knew that loosing that much blood wasn't good. She began to cry again and after hearing her Kakashi turned to her. Looking at himself and all the blood he looked towards the mens restroom. After excusing himself he left only to come back a minute later having changed out into a sleeveless shirt from a storage scroll that he had spare clothes in.

"Sakura" she looked up at her sensei.

"Sensei…Naruto…what…how" she paused a swallowed a sob "What happened to Naruto!?"

"Sasuke" at this Sakura's eyes lit up in surprise and disbelief, then as the thought had time to totally be taken in by her mind her face took on a look of someone who's whole world had been shattered. Ino who had been standing back, yet still close enough to hear looked like she was about to puke.

"What?" Kakashi looked down at the ground. He didn't want to talk to her about this. Bending down on his knee, he placed his hands on his female students shoulders and looked her in her eyes.

"Sasuke wasn't kidnapped by the Sound ninja like originally thought, he voluntarily went with them."

Sakura started shaking her head, not because she didn't believe what Kakashi had said but rather she didn't want to believe this was actually happening. But she had already seen too much proof. Kakashi took a breath then continued.

"From what we can tell Naruto confronted Sasuke at the Valley of the End and they fought. While Naruto wasn't trying to kill Sasuke the reverse wasn't true, Sasuke was actually trying to kill Naruto. Eventually the fight ended with Sasuke being knocked out but Naruto was critically injured. When I arrived the fight was over and I summoned some ninja hounds to bring Sasuke back to the Village."

Seeing that his student was about to ask how badly Naruto and Sasuke was hurt Kakashi decided to go ahead and tell her.

"Sasuke mainly suffered a concussion and some broken bones, his left leg is hurt badly though I don't now to what extent." That was the easy part. But looking at his students pleading eyes for information on her blond haired teammate he braced himself. This wasn't going to be easy.

"Naruto on the other hand is in critical condition. Over 50% of his body is severely burned. He has broken bone and fractures throughout his body and some internal bleeding." He took another breath.

"Sasuke also used Chidori on him."

With those words Sakura went pale as she felt like her life left her. She had seen what the Chidori was capable and imagining that being used on Naruto was something that scared her.

"Sasuke's Chidori pierced Naruto's right side taking out his right lung."

As Sakura mentally listed all the injuries Naruto had she didn't need to hear his next words to know what this all meant.

"Sakura, it doesn't look good. Lady 5th is in their right now doing everything she can to save him but there's a large chance he won't make it and even if he does his ninja career will most likely be over." What Kakashi didn't say was that Naruto's Uzumaki blood and 9 tails Chakra gave him incredible healing powers but even that had limits.

Hours passed as Sakura, Ino and Kakashi waited.

Others came over time all of them were told of Naruto's condition.

Shikamaru was the first to arrive as he was nearly swallowed in a hug by Ino. He told them that Choji was going to be fine and that he was out of surgery. Naji came next in a wheelchair pushed by Ten Ten with Lee and Gaara walking behind her.

After hours of waiting and more people arriving Kakashi whispered something to Shikamaru who then talked Sakura into coming with him to get some food for everyone from the cafeteria.

They were walking past a small group of nurses who were gossiping. While Shikamaru wasn't interested in what they had to say something they said did draw Sakura's attention.

"So Sasuke Uchiha is down that hallway."

It only took Shikamaru a second to process what they had said and the fact that Sakura had heard them as well. He whirled around towards where she had been a second ago.

"Sakura don't…" but it was too late as she was already halfway down the hall running full speed towards a room that had two ANBU outside.

As she approached the ANBU didn't bother trying to stop her as she was a member of the same squad she was allowed in to visit him.

She threw the door open. Her eyes landing on a bruised and beaten Sasuke who was strapped down to his bed. He turned his head to look at her.

"How could you do that to Naruto he was your friend, he wanted to help you!?"

Sasuke merely looked at her as if she were an annoying insect.

"He had served his purpose and was in my way, he was an annoying bug that I crushed it's as simple as that."

These words made Sakura furious, more furious than she had ever felt. In that moment thinking over everything Sasuke had done to possibly the kindest person Sakura had ever met and he wasn't sorry at all sent an emotion through her that she never thought she would feel towards Sasuke.

Hatred, she hated him and she wanted to kill him.

With an angry yell she jumped up on Sasuke's bed and, pumping Chakra into her arms, began to pound Sasuke over and over again. She wasn't even thinking, she just wanted to hurt him. Soon enough the too ANBU began to pull her away as she found herself struggling against Shikamaru's shadow possession jutsu.

"Sakura calm down."

She looked back at Shikamaru, and saw that he wanted to hurt Sasuke too but restrained himself.

She looked at Sasuke one more time, then she spit in his face.

"Fine"

After they returned from their original destination, the cafeteria, Shikamaru went over and whispered to Kakashi who kept glancing at her. Afterwards Shikamaru left to go see how Choji was doing.

About two hours later Tsunadae exited the doors of the emergency room.

Everyone stood at attention. Bracing for the worst, hoping for the best.

"He's stabilized but he's still in the danger zone and is currently comatose. We don't know when or if he'll wake up." Sakura was the first to speak up.

"Can we see him."

Tsunadae nodded her head. "Team 7 can but I'm afraid everyone will have to wait a few days." With that she led Kakashi and Sakura to a room with two ANBU standing outside. Kakashi waved at the tiger masked one in greeting.

Inside the room lay Naruto, covered in bandages plugged up to a breathing machine and tubes that performed a large number of tasks.

To Sakura this looked wrong. Naruto had beaten Zabuza, Haku, Neji and Gaara, she had developed an image of Naruto being almost unkillable in her mind. So seeing him like this in such bad shape, shook her to her core.

After a while Kakashi grabbed her shoulder.

"Come on Sakura, I'll take you home."

"No" Kakashi looked at his student in shock. She had never talked back to him before.

"I'm not leaving until Naruto wakes up." Kakashi looked at the Hokage who merely shrugged.

"There will be nurses in and out all night."

Kakashi sighed in resignation.

"Ok Sakur you can stay I'll tell your parents what's going on."

After Kakashi left Sakura just watched the sleeping form of Naruto.

She knew he would wake up. He had to.

And she wanted to be here when he did.

 **Ok this will probably be just a two shot so be ready for that if you want me to go farther than that please review or PM me and let me know.**

 **This idea came as I was thinking about Naruto's healing ability and wondering what the limits to it were. I never liked how when Sasuke shoved the Chidori into Naruto taking out a lung he was able to heal from all of the damages and still keep fighting as if nothing happened.**

 **Plus Sasuke always struck me as more of a villain than hero. So I wanted to portray that in his confrontation with Sakura.**

 **So please review and let me know what you think.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **Chapter 2**

Sakura woke up to the sound of birds chirping.

She didn't know where she was at first until she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and saw Naruto laying on the bed in front of her.

The nurses had come in a few times during the night but they usually didn't say anything and just left silently.

She noticed there was a blanket around her and wondered if one of the nurses had put it on her while she was asleep. Her eyes were sore from all of the crying she had done the day before and even though she had promised herself to stop crying so much she didn't regret those tears.

She heard the door open behind her and saw Lady Tsunadae walk in with the tiger masked ANBU behind her. The ANBU agent turned towards her

"Did you sleep comfortably? I came in here and saw you shivering in your sleep and put a blanket over you, I hope it helped"

Sakura had always thought the ANBU were all scary and yet this one was polite and kind.

"Thank you for the blanket"

The tiger ANBU nodded his head

"You should have covered yourself up before you fell asleep as it gets cold in the hospital during the day much less at night"

Sakura smiled a little finding his concern comforting

"I'll make sure to cover up tonight"

The tiger ANBU nodded his head with a new entry through the door as a white haired man in a ponytail and red sleeveless jacket and a large scroll on his back walked in. Sakura was sure she had seen this man with Naruto before and as she thought about it she was for sure she had seen a picture of him in the academies text books before but she couldn't place his face.

The man looked at her for a moment before turning his head back to the Hokage.

"What's the news on his condition Tsunadae?"

This confused Sakura as she was sure the man could see how bad it was, unless there was new information

Tsunadae taking a look at Sakura's expression decided to speak

"I came in here a few hours ago with some other medical ninja and we ran some tests and I recently received the information from those tests"

Sakura was desperate for any information but she felt like Kakashi should be there.

"Lady Tsunadae shouldn't Kakashi Sensei be here?" she asked

"Normally he would be but I had an emergency mission and he was the only one available to take it, he should be back in another day or two" she said turning back to the two faces in front of her

"Alright heres what we know, Orochimaru's curse mark was an attempt to create an artificial Sage Mode by forcing Nature energy into the users body and combining it with their chakra and Orochimaru's chakra that is in the seal. Now Nature energy itself is not evil and actually avoids evil people so when it is forced into the seal a corrupted version of nature energy and chakra is created which I have dubbed 'Dark Chakra'." Tsunadae paused making sure that everyone was keeping up with her before continuing

"When Sasuke hit Naruto with his Chidori" she said not mentioning that it was the second time he was hit that had done this next part "The Dark chakra was sent through his body causing massive damage to him and his chakra, as we don't know a whole lot about this 'Dark Chakra' I can't make a certain diagnosis of what this will do to him. For instance, we know that most of the damage was done to the right side of the body, so he may lose the use of his right arm and if he doesn't he'll probably need physical therapy to get it back to normal, however he will probably never be able to weave hand signs due to the damage in his arm. That means no more shadow clones and transformations"

Sakura felt her heart sink at the thought of Naruto never being able to use his favorite jutsu again, she also knew that being able to use hand signs would be a serious handicap for even the best shinobi. She listened to the next part of what the Hokage said.

"Although he should still be able to use the Rasengan and other jutsu that do not require seals and he could even learn to use the summoning jutsu without hand signs after enough practice, and the Uzumaki were famous seal masters so he could learn that as well and he will still be able to use Taijutsu"

Hearing that actually helped Sakura feel better as she now knew that it wasn't all over for Naruto yet, he could still achieve his dream!

"Now on to the part where the damage was the worse, his lung." She paused at this as if trying to think of the best way to say this.

"Quite frankly his lung, while healed enough that we were able to patch it up, is still heavily damaged and he will probably never be able to push himself to the limit again without risking destroying his lung again. If he wakes up he'll have to take it easy for a while as he will become out of breathe easier and he'll have to have someone with him and watching over him every day because we all know he tends to overdo things daily"

Looking over at Naruto's still form she said the next part quieter than before

"That is if he wakes up and if he does he'll have all those scars from the burns and a nasty one from the chidori he received"

It was quiet for a moment

"He WILL wake up"

All three of the adults in the room turned towards Sakura, who had a determined look in her eyes

"After all he still needs to become Hokage"

At that everyone could only smile

 **1 WEEK LATER**

Sakura's parents had stopped by and tried talking her into going home but she had insisted on staying. Although she wasn't just sitting around staring at Naruto

For one that would be creepy

And second, she couldn't get the thought out of her head about how if she had been stronger she could have gone along and helped Naruto.

So she had taken to training whenever anyone was free to teach her. There was an open training room in the hospital that she would go to.

When Kurenie was free she would learn Genjutsu.

Kakashi had taken to teaching her strategy and Kenjutsu.

Gai would stop by and tutor her in Taijutsu remarking that her desire for self improvement was 'youthful' and had said that once Naruto recovered he would train him in Taijutsu too

Sakura liked how Gai said WHEN not IF, it gave her the feeling of someone believing just like she was that Naruto would get through this

But what she trained in the most was Medical Ninjutsu, which was mainly because she was in a hospital and even Tsunadae and Sizune would teach her when they had time.

Their friends would come by and visit with Shikamaru and Iruk being the most common, the Ichiraku's would even bring her some Ramen every night and see how Naruto was doing and the Konohamaru squad would come by every day after school to check on 'Big Brother' Naruto, Konohamaru would even talk to him and tell him about all the things they could do together when Naruto woke up, before getting teary eyed and saying goodbye, which made Sakura want to cry too. She wondered if Naruto knew how many people cared about him, she hoped he did.

Sasuke, after recovering from his injuries and his blodied and bruised face Sakura had given him, had been moved to the Konoha Prison for holding under ANBU guard until they could determine whether or not Naruto would wake up or not, if he didn't then that meant that he would eventually die and one of the charges against him would change from attempted murder of a fellow Konoha Shinobi to murder of a Konoha Shinobi along with the charge of treason and conspiring with known enemies of the leaf village. But as long as the question of whether or not Naruto lived or not hung in the air they wanted to wait before setting a trial date as Naruto would be a key witness.

Here a week later she was still camping out in Naruto's hospital room, but she didn't care, she knew he would wake up and when he got better she would show him how much she had improved and she would help him become Hokage

 **1 Month Later**

Sakura had grown her hair out some more and had began to wear it in a pony tail, originally she was going to cut it, remembering how it had been a target during the forest of death, but kept putting it off. Then a female sword specialist had been admitted and told Sakura that she had face the same problem but had began to put hers in a pony tail as a dare to her enemies and when they came out of hiding to try and grab it she would cut them in two.

Sakura liked the sound of that and had begun to grow her hair out to see if she could use it to her advantage.

They had taken the breathing machine off of Naruto when his lung got strong enough to breath on it's own

But now Sakura was asleep with her head on Naruto's bed, Gai had made her run 50 laps with weights on and she couldn't remember ever feeling this exhausted before.

Suddenly she awoke to the feeling of someone's hand on her head

Her head snapped up in surprise as jade green met bright blue

"Hi Sakura"

She felt tears fill her eyes

"Naruto" and before she knew it she was hugging him

"I knew you would wake up!"

She got back up and wiped her eyes

"I'm going to get Lady Tsunadae I'll be right back"

All of her exhaustion forgotten she took down the hallway with a smile on her face that let every nurse and doctor she passed know what this meant.

Naruto Uzumaki was awake

 **That is a chapter finished!**

 **Thank you for reading and I left somethings open ended in case you want me to continue and if I do continue what do you want to see? This is a NaruSaku as that is one of my favorite pairings and I'm sad it didn't happen, but I also didn't want Sakura and Naruto to just end up together at the end of this chapter but Sakura is definitely seeing Naruto more for who he really is now and is looking at him in a new light and if I continue I will show them growing closer as Naruto deals with everything and all of the new problems in his way.**

 **Now for reviews!**

 **Thor94: Kabuto mentioned that he sent healing chakra to that exact spot for that attack and it cost him most of his chakra. Naruto's chakra heals his injuries around his body allowing him to heal from multiple injuries while Kabuto only healed from a single one and was mostly powerless afterwords, while Naruto can heal from multiple injuries at once and keep going for hours. I hope this answered your question.**

 **MakiYuno: I might continue it I'm not a hundred percent sure yet let, me know if you still do and what you would like to see**

 **Wyle: I think the fast paced bit kinda helps it in a way as in actual emergency situations the individuals loved ones will be there for hours but it will seem like a short amount of time to them. I actually meant to add more detail to the Sakura and Sasuke interaction but forgot to go back, sorry. But thank you for pointing out those mistakes and I tried to avoid them as much during this**

 **Razgriz: I sortened your user name a little so I could get to your comment faster hope you don't mind. I hope you liked the chapter and please let me know what you think**

 **Ivan Meza: Thanks and lease let me know what you think of this chapter.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: Thanks for the complement and it always bothered me that Sasuke got off at the end with no punishment even after all the things he did and all the people he killed.**

 **On a personal note, and this is going to be going on all my other Fanfics on the site, could you all please refrain from swearing in the reviews as I have seen it get out of hand on other fancies where the reviews will have the worst language and I want to keep that from happening on my stories and I'm actually posting this after have removed a review on one of my other Fanfics witch was filled with horrible language and I want to be respectful to the readers if you want to insult me that is fine, however there is no need to feel it with horrible language. I appreciate people pointing out my mistakes such as Wyle.23 did but if your just going to hate a story and insult every little thing in a rude way then you do not need to read the fanfic.**

 **Sorry for that last bit but I felt like I needed to get that out there!**

 **Thank you all for reading and please review and have a nice day!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **You wanted it so I have decided to continue the story, hope you all enjoy!**

 **Chapter 3**

After Tsunade had said that Naruto was going to be fine Sakura had ran around the village letting everyone see knew know that Naruto had woken up.

Everyone had different reactions

The first people she had run into were Gai's team. Neji had let out a sigh and a small smile in relief that his friend had made it through okay, Tenten, while not knowing Naruto very well was pleased that no one they knew had died. Lee on the other hand had dropped to the ground with tears of joy giving a speech about the 'Springtime of Youth' mentally scaring many of the people nearby.

Next she had run into Choji and Shikamaru. Choji had dropped his bag of chips and had even let a few tears fall, and Shikamaru looked the most relieved of anyone she had seen yet as he was thankful that nobody had died on his first mission.

She ran into the Yamanaka flower shop next and told Ino who hugged her happily knowing how much this meant to Sakura and how much this would relieve Shikamaru.

Sakura found Kiba and Shino next, who were currently eating at a small restaurant. Kiba had grinned like a chesire cat ironically, and if the buzzing from Shino was any indication, he was happy too. They said they would let Hinata know as well

She stopped by the Ichiraku Ramen stand next, she knew that Naruto and the Ichiraku's were close and they had even visited the hospital when they could. They both became teary eyed and the ramen chef told Sakura that when Naruto was well enough to let them know and they would let him have an all you can eat ramen buffet for free. Sakura thanked them and left again.

Sakura had found Kakashi next who knew something had happened to Naruto the moment he saw Sakura as the girl hadn't left the hospital grounds since Naruto had been put in there. When Sakura had told him that Naruto was awake the only thing Sakura saw was his single eye widen and then for him to vanish, probably to see his blond student.

Then she had run into Gaara and his siblings, who were there to help finalize the new treaty between the Leaf and Sand villages, and when she told him a small smile appeared on his face

The last place she had stopped at had been the Academy where she had stormed into her old class room where Iruka had stopped his lesson upon seeing Sakura, waiting in anticipation

"Naruto's awake"

When he heard those words Iruka felt more relieved than he ever had in his whole life and the Konohamaru squad burst into tears in the middle of class, happy that their 'big brother Naruto' was going to be okay.

After that Sakura had gone home to see her parents to tell them the new and ask them about something her and Tsunade had talked about.

When she finally got back to the hospital she had been stopped by Tsunade before entering the room.

"What is it Lady Tsunade?" she asked curiously

"I told Naruto about his condition and how he won't be able to use most Ninjutsu anymore." Tsunade tooke a breath at this and Sakura became worried about what this would do to Naruto

"He was quiet for a bit but then he put on that big smile and claimed that he would still take the hat from me, but I know that this is bothering him a lot more than he lets on, so watch out for him, okay?"

Before leaving Sakura stopped Tsunade

"Lady Tsunade could I talk to you about something?"

Tsunade looked at the young girl curiously

 **AN HOUR LATER, NARUT'S ROOM**

Naruto stared at the ceiling, when he was alone in a quiet place he couldn't help but think.

His chest still hurt, especially on the right side but he supposed that made sense from what the old hag said he had a hole punch through him.

But thinking about his injuries made him think about his arm.

He tried to lift his right hand up and touch his nose but he only managed to lift it up a little bit and it felt like it was taking everything he had to keep it there, unable to keep the effort up anymore his arm fell right back on the bed and he started coughing, he covered his mouth with a tissue and when he pulled it back he saw blood on it. When this had happened earlier he had nearly had a panic attack but Grandma had said that where he had a large amount of blood inside his body from all of his injuries he would be coughing it back up every now and then.

But that wasn't the worst part, the worst part was how everytime he would cough the right side of his chest would explode into some of the worst pain he had ever felt in his life.

And when he thought about these injuries he couldn't help but think of the person responsible

Sasuke

He still had a hard time believing it, Sasuke was someone he had come to look to as his best friend and brother.

But then he had tried to kill Naruto and had shown that he didn't care if any of their friends died

Naruto realized now that he and Sasuke were no longer friends, even if Sasuke reformed and became a good person Naruto didn't think he could ever trust Sasuke again.

Still, he didn't hate Sasuke as he believed that it was Sasuke's brother, Itach and Orochimaru who had helped push him into becoming Naruto's enemy.

Still, he thought happily, Sakura had been there when he woke up and he couldn't help but wonder how long she had spent here.

But then his thoughts went back to his injuries and he tried to stay positive, thinking about Lee, and how he could become Hokage even without all the fancy and cool Ninjutsu.

But then he was hit with the though again that he would never be as good at Taijutsu as Lee because of his lung setting a limit on how hard he could push himself physically, still from what Granny had said he could still become highly skilled in Taijutsu, and he could learn those cool Seals like he saw Pervy Sage use before and when he and Kakashi had talked about the different things he could learn Kakashi had said that the Sealing arts were incredibly powerful. And there were weapons he could learn, he just had to focus on what he could do and believe that he could be Hokage, it just meant he would have to work harder now.

With a slight knock Sakura came in

"Hey Naruto, How are you feeling?"

"Not the best but granny said I'll be able to leave in a week or two, and the sooner I'm out of here the sooner I can get ready to take that hat from the Hags head" he said with a grin with Sakura smiling back

Then a frown came across Naruto's face

"Hey Sakura what happened to Sasuke?"

Sakura frowned as she didn't want to talk about Sasuke. But she told Naruto about how Sasuke was in jail under ANBU guard 24-7 and awaiting trial. Naruto didn't feel bad for Sasuke as he had done horrible things and had betrayed his village and friends and Naruto agreed that Sasuke needed to be punished for it.

Still, he saw that the topic made Sakura uncomfortable so he began asking about what had been going on in the village since he had been injured and as Sakura happily chatted Naruto couldn't help but feel at ease as he felt comfortable around Sakura.

 **The Hokage Tower**

"HE WHAT" Tsunade yelled breaking her desk

Jiraiya was many things, Spymaster, Sage, Seal Master among many but one thing most people didn't know about him was that he was also the biggest legal expert in Konoha, even though he had mainly learned so much about the law to make sure that he never broke the law in his peeping but that's besides the point.

He was currently working as the Prosecutor against Sasuke Uchiha who had just surprised them

"Sasuke Uchiha and his lawyer have petitioned the Daimiyo" Jiraiya repeated

What that menat was that after the founding of the village in case of a legal battle between the Senju and Uchiha clans would pop up they could petition the Daimiyo meaning that the case would be brought before the Daimiyo in the capitol city of the Land of Fire where the Daimiyo would be the judge instead of the Hokage.

Now, since Sasuke would probably still lose this didn't make much of a difference except that Naruto was currently not in the condition to travel to the Capital so this bought the Uchiha and his lawyer even more time.

Tsunade sat back down in her chair, rubbing her head as if she felt a headache coming.

"That means that he'll have to be sent to the jail in the Capital until Naruto is capable of traveling that far without risking his recovery, and that could take months, maybe even years."

Jiraiya nodded in agreement

"Exactly, their using this to buy time to try to think of a way out of this, that is, if Sasuke hasn't already"

Tsunade raised an eyebrow, signaling for him to explain.

Jiraiya cleared his throat

"The fastest way to get to the Capital from here is a road that most people avoid and on this it's a two day journey for a normal squad of Shinobi. Not counting the fact that they'll be escorting a prisoner and some civilian lawyers will add on another two days. All in all a four day trip on a road with little traffic would give Orochimaru the perfect opportunity to set up an ambush to take Sasuke and with the amount of Shinobi currently at our disposal we could only send a small squadron of ANBU and maybe two Jounin"

Tsunade turned in her chair and looked out over the village she had sworn to protect

She couldn't help but feel that things were going to get a lot more complicated in the near future

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

Naruto was being wheeled out of the Hospital in a wheelchair by Kakashi with Sakura on his right and Jiraiya and Tsunade on his left

"Man, I can't wait to see my apartment again I've missed that place" Naruto said. The nurses and Sakura wouldn't let him eat any ramen while he had been in the hospital but he had tons in his apartment's cabinets and in secret spots hidden from visitors.

"Sorry Naruto but you won't be going back to your apartment just yet" Kakashi said

"Huh, What do you mean Kakashi sensei?" Naruto asked with confusion plain on his face

"Naruto, you can hardly walk across a room without getting exhausted and your right arm is pretty much useless and your still in a good bit of pain, basically you can't take care of yourself so you'll be staying with someone for the time being" Tsunade said

"Who?" Naruto asked

"Me" Sakura said

Naruto's jaw about hit the floor

"Sakura been studying hard the past few weeks in preparation to help you recover so you'll be staying with her and the further along you progress the more I'll teach her. In other words she'll know a whole step ahead of what you need to recover" Tsunade said

"Though you'll still have to come by once a week for testing to be done but I've also tought Sakura some things to help you with your physical therapy"

Sakura flashed Naruto the victory sign

"In other words until further notice I'm the boss of you, and that means no ramen until further notice"

Naruto didn't know whether to be ecstatic or sad. On one hand he would be around Sakura a lot more on the other he wouldn't be having ramen for a while.

As they exited the door the light briefly blinded Naruto

"SURPRISE!" was the loud shout he heard and when his vision straightened out he saw all of his friends and the jounin sensei's standing there

"We thought we'd congratulate you on getting out of the hospital" Ino said

"Yeah it wasn't troublesome so I went along with it" Shikamaru said

As everyone congratulated Naruto and wished him a quick recovery he couldn't help but feel incredibly happy

 **There another one done!**

 **I wanted to show Naruto's release from the hospital in this one and the reactions to him waking up**

 **Now some of you may be wondering why he has been released. Well, members of the Uzumaki clan were said to heal and recover at incredible speeds so this is just that working but he still has a long way to go before he can pick his ninja duties back up**

 **Now I've been on Spring break recently but now that school has started back I won't be able to update as much but I will try to update at least once a week**

 **Now for reviews**

 **Spaceorbis: I always felt like Sakura never really knew the real Sasuke and only had this idea of Sasuke that was nothing like the real thing so the Sakura punching Sasuke was more like her seeing him for what he really was.**

 **RAZGRIZ: It will take a few chapters for Naruto to recover enough to go on missions but things will definitely change and have already changed between Naruto and Sakura and I always thought that Naruto wasn't living up to his full potential so with him being forced to use means other than Ninjutsu he'll have a chance to grow as a ninja more.**

 **Ivan meza: He will definitely face challenges as he continues to aim for the title of Hokage.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: I went into detail more with what is going on with Sasuke and he is being charged with a serious crime so no slap on the hand this time although a certain snake may try for a jail break later on.**

 **Jh831: as you can see I am continuing. In the original series it was said that jutsu that reguired hand signs would always require hand signs and the whole thing about being able to use jutsu that require hand signs without them came at the end of shippuden so it kinda conflicts with what was originally stated and I'm going to go by what was originally said which is that hand signs are required for most Ninjutsu. holding grudges and hating people is something that Naruto is not good at doing he even forgave Pain, but as you can see he doesn't trust Sasuke and no longer thinks of him as a friend.**

 **Redfoxshadow: hope you liked this chapter.**

 **MaeMana: I have decided to continue and I'm glad you like the story. As for the whole Tsunadae and Tsunade thing I think it's a language thing like how Jujitsu has 3 of four ways to spell it in English I think there are different ways to spell Tsunade as I have seen different versions of her name before but I've changed it to Tsunade, hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

 **Please review and thank you for reading**

 **Thank you and have a nice day!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **Chapter 4**

"Come on Naruto, you can do it, just three more!" Sakura said watching her blonde teammate.

It was early in the morning at the Haruno household and even though Naruto had been here for a two weeks he still felt like he had made little progress, still, he had to admit that it felt good when Sakura was cheering him on.

The Haruno's had been kind and polite to Naruto during his stay here. They had moved him to one of their guest bedrooms and Sakura would always come in the mornings and they would do various exercises and activities, such as arm wrestling Sakura and walking around the house

He lifted the small weight in his right hand half way to his face from the arm rest three more times before finally putting his arm down panting.

"Hey Sakura, how long is this going to take? I used to be able to lift these things for hours, now I can barely do it for a few minutes" he said

Sakura smiled kindly at him, although her eyes held a bit of sadness

"This is physical therapy Naruto, it takes time, your arm is going to have to re-learn how to function and build up strength and even then your arm still won't work at what it used to" She said putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

But Naruto's frown deepened

"But Sakura, I can't use Genjutsu, I never have been good, and now my Ninjutsu is virtually gone and I'll never be able to be on the same level of Taijutsu as Lee or Neji"

He looked at the floor with frustration clear on his face

"How can I be a ninja if I can't do those things?"

Sakura was thinking of what to say when a loud voice interrupted

"You think Ninjutsu, Genjutsu and Taijutsu is all there is? Don't be ridiculous, there are other areas that great ninja have used as their main skills"

Naruto and Sakura looked at the window with the new arrival making them jump out of their skins

In the window of the Haruno's guestroom stood a man with long white hair

Sakura now knew this man to be Jiraiya of the legendary Sannin

Naruto on the other hand knew him as something different

"PERVY SAGE!" Naruto said excitedly

"STOP CALLING ME THAT, YOU'LL SCARE ALL THE LADIES OFF YOU BRAT!" The Sage yelled back in false anger

Sakura just sweat dropped at the whole thing, not sure what the relationship between these two were.

As the two bickered back and forth over what he should be called Sakura decided to intervene.

"Um, Lord Jiraiya, what did you mean by what you said a moment ago, and how do you know Naruto?" Sakura asked still confused on how somebody who was deadlast in the Academy know somebody as famous and skilled as the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya the Toad Sage.

Jiraiya smiled at Sakura as if pleased with her answer, then turned back to Naruto

"See? Your girlfriend knows how to properly address me so be sure to pick up that habit up brat"

At the mention of girlfriend Naruto started grinning stupidly and stuttering as he blushed

Sakura went red and started stuttering and shaking, trying to get words out until she finally did what she always did in these situations

She went full on violent mode and punched someone

Usually this would mean Naruto

But he is injured so that's a no go there

So she punched the only other person in the room

A certain Toad Sage

Jiraiya barely had time to register what he saw then he looked surprised and before the punch connected he gaped at the situation.

The punch sent him across the room into a wall

Immediately afterwards it seemed to dawn on Sakura what she had just done and she went pale as a ghost, turning to Naruto, she grabbed him by the hands and looked at him with a panicked face

"I JUST PUNCHED A SANNIN, WHY DIDN"T YOU STOP ME!" she said

"How was I supposed to do that?" Naruto said

"I don't know you're the number 1 unpredictable ninja, you could have come up with something!"

Then Jiraiya's voice cut off anymore conversation

"Looks like we have the same taste in women brat" he said looking at Naruto

Then he turned his gaze towards Sakura who actually began shaking under his glare, sure she was going to pay heavily

Then he sighed

"Don't worry about it, I get hit harder by Tsunadae all the time. In fact this morning alone I've been punched three times"

This drew Sakura's attention

"Why would the Hokage punch you?" she asked confused as to why her childhood hero would punch one of her closest friends on a regular bases, although she conveniently seemed to forget the majority of her and Naruto's relationship up till this moment had consisted of her punching him.

"Well-" Jiraiya was trying to think up a reasonable excuse when Naruto opened his mouth

"That's because he's a big p-"

"NARUTO LOOK, IS THAT A CLOUD SHAPED LIKE A BOWL OF RAMEN!" Jiraiya yelled while pointing at the window

"Let me see, let me see, let me see!" Naruto said heading over to the window befor gaining a confused look

"Hey there's not a cloud in the sky" Naruto said disappointed

"Really my mistake" Jiraiya said

Naruto sighed disappointedly

"And here I thought I finally understood how Shikamaru felt about clouds

 **In a meetings of Chunin**

The head Chunin was going over a map detailing all the assighnments everyone would be given when a loud sneeze interrupted the senior officer

He looked back at the Chunin who had sneezed

"You okay back there Nara?"

The person in question sighed like he was extremely bored

"Troublesome, I have no idea where that sneeze came from"

The senior officer nodded his head

"Still stop by the Hospital later and have a medic nin check you out, can't have you giving away our location in the middle of a stealth mission"

"Troublesome"

 **Back at the Haruno household**

Jiraiya stood in front of the young teens

"Now as to what I was talking about earlier, many famous ninja had skills despite those three they teach you in the Academy, you already know of Sealing and Sakura here has been training in medical ninjutsu and kenjutsu, I mainly use sealing, summoning and Taijutsu. There are several weapon based you can learn, for example the 3rd Hokage was a Bojutsu fighter, and there are many other skills" he said catching the young Uzumaki's undivided attention.

"There are also many different kinds of Taijutsu. Such as Goken like you friend Lee uses and Jyuken with the Hyugga and I use a style known as Frog Kata so even if you can't use the same style as that Lee kid, just find a teacher who can teach you a style you can use"

Then turning to Sakura he said

"For you other question about my relation to Naruto the answer is simple" he said in a serious voice.

Before grinning a pointing at himself

"I'm his Master!"

Sakura had the look she would have if someone told her that she thought would have been impossible.

Then she face palmed

"Of course you are" leave it to Naruto to somehow get one of the legendary Sannin as his Master.

She wonders if she could convince Tsunade to make her an apprentice?

Jiraiya clapped his hands together

"Ok then, let's get started!"

From his haori he pulled out a scroll and he pulled some ink and brushes out of his ninja pouch.

"Alright Naruto, first step is to learn how to properly write characters"

Naruto looked uncomfortable at the prospect

"Well, you see I can't really write with my hand right at the moment" he began only to get cut off

"That's fine your left hand still works good and training that will help you on the field of battle, shinobi using two hands equally are quite fearsome" he said as if he was trying to sell Naruto on the idea while also slipping 'you're not getting out of this' into his tone of voice.

"I'm your Master! Do you really think I'd do anything that could seriously hurt you?"

Naruto gave him a deadpan look

"You threw me off a cliff"

Jiraiya mumbled a _"Oh yeah I forgot about that"_

Sakura looked mortified at what she just heard

"YOU THREW HIM OFF A CLIF, CHA!?"

What happened to Jiraiya after that I'll leave to your imagination

 **ON THE ROOF TOP ACROSS FROM THE HARUNO HOME**

Kakashi Hatake sat watching everything go on in the room.

Frankly he wasn't sure what to do.

He felt like he should tell Naruto to quit the ninja life as it would be too dangerous for him and he would be at a greater risk of death.

The other part wanted him to succeed and overcome the odds and become a great ninja, and eventually, a great Hokage.

Before he made a decision one way or the other he would need to think carefully on what he did next, right now everyone was being supportive of Naruto working his way back into the ninja forces but they were being idealistic and Kakashi was being realistic and frankly he didn't want to lose anyone else.

'Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum'

Those were the words he tried to live by, but this situation was complicated.

If he supports Naruto and he ends up dying then his blood will be on Kakashi's hands, but if he doesn't he might be betraying his student?

Kakashi looked at the sky

What should he do?

He knew one thing he needed to do and now was the perfect opportunity, he had already put it off too long.

 **Konoha Jail**

A door opened in a cell and Sasuke looked to see who his ANBU guards had let in.

Kakashi

"Kakashi, what do you want" Sasuke asked as if his former teachers very presence annoyed him

"I want to know why" Kakashi said, his single visible eye looking down on the young teen in front of him

Sasuke raised an eyebrow

"Why what, can you be more specific" he said although Kakashi knew he knew what he wanted to know

"I want to hear from your own mouth why you tried to kill Naruto"

Sasuke's infamous smirk appeared

"That's simple Kakashi, I wanted to leave and he was in my way, there was also the added potential that I could unlock the Mongekyo Sharingan"

Sasuke looked Kakashi in the eye

"Simly, killing him was more advantageous for me at that time, and even though I failed he's still in the hospital in a coma" Sasuke said with his smirk widening

"So much for his dreams of Hokage"

Now it was Kakashi's turn to smirk, to the confusion of Sasuke

"Naruto's awake, and more than that he's already out of the hospital and on his way to recovery"

Sasuke looked shocked at this news

"You wouldn't have heard this as your contact with whats going on outside this cell, so I'll say it now"

His eye narrowed

"You failed Sasuke"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed in anger but Kakashi continued

"I use to think you were like a younger me, but now I know you aren't. Even in my darkest moment of my life I would have never tried to kill a comrade"

Kakashi turned towards the door and began walking towards it. But before leaving he decided to say one last thing. Without turning around, he said

"Remember the first lesson I taught you, 'Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their comrades are even worse than scum'. So Sasuke, you tried to kill yours, what does that make you?"

And with that he left the cell, the ANBU guards closing the door and locking the door securely.

 **Another chapter done**

 **I wanted to show some of Naruto's early recovery in this chapter and introduce some of what he'll be training in during this story. In Shippuden it was shown that Naruto was skilled in seals, he was able to understand and use the key to the 9 tails seal, which only a seal master should have been able to understand. So it always bothered me that they never showed him using seals in the series. Another thing Naruto will likely be learning if I don't change my mind is Bojutsu as during the fight with Madara and Kaguya Naruto showed that he had considerable skill in staff fighting. I asked myself, where was this skill the rest of the series?**

 **I also wanted to have Jiraiya make an appearance in this chapter that fit his character. I also included Kakashi questioning on what he should do and him confronting Sasuke. also the parts where it would get serious then funny were things I always liked so I tried to have that in this chapter with Jiraiya's appearance.**

 **Now for reviews**

 **Bankai777: it's a common misconception but there is a difference between jail and prison. A jail is used to hold someone until a trial and a prison is for if they are found guilty. As Sasuke is awaiting trial he would go to a jail rather than a prison, but if he makes it to trial and found guilty he would go somwheres like the blood prison..**

 **Ivan meza: I translated what you said and I couldn't understand it completely, it translated to 'shall drama' if you were wondering if drama will appear in the story, probably it appears like all stories have a bit of drama**

 **Stitchman626: thanks for the compliment, schools started back for me so I'll try to update this story at least once a week, I don't plan on abandoning any of my stories but I do tend to take breaks every now and then to work on other stories then come back but I'd let you know if that happens and it usually does if I'm having writers block on one story or if I have a story idea in my head and I just cannot write until I get it out and write it down, and if I write it I might as well post it, and I do not like it when stories are abandoned either especially good ones but I understand that sometimes life happens.**

 **Wyle23: um, could you be a bit more specific because you may notice things that I don't**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: I have a plan for Naruto and how he'll become a shinobi which is why his recovery will be told in time skip form as his recovery is just a part of the story as he will still have to learn a new way of fighting and being a ninja.**

 **Thank you for reading, please review and have a nice day!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **Chapter 5**

The sound of wood classing filled the back yard of the Haruno household.

Naruto watched as Sakura and Kakashi sparred with wooden swords in the back yard, well Sakura attacked while Kakashi defended while reading his little orange book while giving Sakura pointers

"Left, above, right, block, look up at that cloud" Sakura following her sensei's advice looked up at the clouds without a second thought

Only for Kakashi to swipe his sword at her legs, knocking her to the ground.

"You need to be able to concentrate on multiple things in a battle. It was you concentrating on what I was saying that ended up with you being on the ground. If this had been a real fight you would have been dead" Kakashi said as Sakura pulled herself up and took a stance to show that she was ready again.

Kakashi raised his eyebrow in question

"I can still move so I can still fight!" Sakura said

Kakashi couldn't help but smile at his student

 _'_ _She really has matured, before Naruto got injured she never would have trained this hard or pushed herself to her limits, she'll make a fine kunoichi someday'_

So Kakashi held up his sword as Sakura came at him again

Naruto couldn't help but smile seeing them training and improving

"Naruto" Naruto turned towards the person who was sitting across the table from him on the back porch.

"Yeah Shikamaru, what's up?"

"It's your turn"

Naruto looked down at his board, it had been over 2 months since he had gotten here and many of their friends would drop by everyone and then to see how Naruto was doing, the most common being Jiraiya, Kakashi, Iruka, the Konohamaru corps, Grandma Tsunade, Nejii, Lee and Shikamaru and his team.

And when Shikamaru first came he brought Naruto a shoji game that they would play when he came over. Normally this is a game Naruto would have no interest in playing but he was touched that Shikamaru took time out of his schedule to come over and teach him how to play.

Naruto reached for a piece with his left arm only for Shikamaru to slap his hand, he gave Shikamaru the evil eye.

"You and Sakura both are out to get me aren't you"

"We're trying to help you idiot"

Naruto 'hmphd' like a child before lifting his right hand to move the piece to his chosen location on the board.

Sakura had began making Naruto use his right arm more for everyday tasks, saying that if he didn't start using his arm more then when he recovered he would have a hard time using it, saying that he couldn't just build up strength in it but needed skill.

Shikamaru was now apparently on the bandwagon as well.

Across the yard seeing that his other student was distracted Kakashi asked Sakura a question he had been waiting for

"What's his progress like so far?"

Sakura paused for a moment to catch her breath

"He can walk around the house without any problem now, and Lady Hokage was thinking that I should take him out walking around the village soon"

Kakashi nodded his head, still Naruto walking around town worried him, Naruto had rarely been attacked in his youth as no one believed that they could actually kill Naruto, but now with Naruto so injured one of those idiots might feel like they have a chance.

"Let me know when you decide to take him out" Kakashi said before moving onto his next question knowing this one would make her uncomfortable.

He casually leaned against his wooden sword and in a 'nice weather today' voice he said

"Have you spoken to Hinata Lately?"

Sakura's shoulders tensed and her eyes widened

That was one thing she did not want to talk about

She hadn't even told Naruto

The short end of it was that when Naruto was still in a coma Hinata had come to visit him. Sakura had been there, of course as this had been early on of his comatose state, and Sakura had said a greeting to Hinata. Hinata didn't answer back at first but then began to talk to Sakura about how Naruto was hurt so badly because of her and that it was Sakura's fault, Sakura felt this way already, but seeing a lack of reaction from Sakura hit a nerve in Hinata and the normally quiet girl began to yell at Sakura. So Sakura finally said something back and told Hinata to be quiet because she might disturb Naruto.

This sent Hinata over the deep end, because she tried to attack Sakura. Luckily Jiraiya had just walked in the room and proceeded to take Hinata out who was then banned from the room until further notice by Shizune as she could have seriously injured Naruto further if her attack had gone further.

" Yeah I've seen her, we haven't talked though" Sakura said with a saddened expression remembering the things the normally shy and sweet Hinata had said.

Kakashi shook his head knowingly

"I understand, still you'll have to confront her and settle things between you two sooner than later and it would be better to do it here in the village than when your out on a mission in enemy territory"

Sakura looked over at Naruto who had that face he had when he was concentrating that looked like a cross between someone needing to go to the bathroom and someone with a bad headache as he tried to beat an amused Shikamaru at his favorite game

"I know Sensei but with Hinata-" she paused before rephrasing "No, with _everything_ , everythings changed and they'll never be the way they were before." She said before looking Kakashi in the eye

"I definintely do not want to be the way I was before, my relationship with Naruto has changed and I now see Sasuke for how he really is. I may never have a friendly relationship with Hinata again, but I know that even as things change I can still do what I can to protect what I do have"

Kakashi looked at his student, proud that he was her sensei. Naruto and Sasuke had dark pasts and had been forced to mature in certain ways that normal people their ages shouldn't. Naruto had persevered and fought to make a better life for himself while Sasuke had become a psychopath.

Sakura however had not lost anyone yet, nor faced the darkness her teammates had and yet she is maturing on her own as a person incredibly

Kakashi's thoughts were interrupted as Mibune, Sakura's mother, brought out some lemonade and snacks for her daughter and guests

Looking at Sakura he ruffled her hair and placed an arm around her shoulder pulling a confused Sakura along to the back porch

Naruto looked at Kakashi in confusion

"Why are you so happy, Kakashi Sensei?" he asked

Kakashi just let out a chuckle

"I'm just glad I was lucky enough to get you two as my student"

Kakashi just looked at the sky

 _'_ _If only Sasuke hadn't decided to walk the path shrouded in darkness'_

 **Elsewhere in the Land of Water**

Itachi Uchiha looked at the piece of paper that contained some information that he had found important

It was about his younger brother, Sasuke, who had tried to kill his teammate and the 9 tails Jinchuriki, and nearly succeeded

Itachi closed his eyes in thought

Could he have done something to steer Sasuke clear of this path that would have saved his younger brother?

Looking back on the events of the Uchiha clan massacre there wasn't anything he could have done different without putting the village and Sasuke at risk

Still if his little brother was found guilty, as he would be, at his trial then he would either be given life imprisonment or the death penalty

"Oooooh" said Kisame reading the same information he was "give your brother a few more years and I think he would be a bonified mass murderer like the rest of us"

He gave Itachi a toothy grin

"I guess you two really are brothers"

Itachi gave him a _seriously_ look 

To save his brother there was only one thing Itachi could do

Itach stood up and began walking

Kisame seeing his partner leaving hurredly gathered his thing and his sword and ran to catch up

"And where are you going?"

Itachi turned with a Sharingan blazing in his eye

"We're going back to the Leaf village" and with like that they began moving

 **Hidden Sound village**

Orochimaru looked at the information that his spies that remained in the Leaf had sent him

It was the time and routes of Sasuke being transported to the Land of Fire's capitol to have his case heard before the Damiyo. This would most likely be the last chance Orochimaru would have to aquire Sasuke and the Sharingan

"Kabuto!" Orochimaru yelled out, having Kabuto appear almost out of thin air

"Yes, Lord Orochimaru"

"Go through our men and find those we can use for an anbush in this area" he said handing Kabuto the information and a map of the path the leaf ninja would use to transport the Uchiha

Kabuto looked at the papers curiously

"May I ask what all of this is for?"

Orochimaru smiled and while this smile would look kind on most faces it looked completely different on Orochimaru

It looked pure evil

"Why, Kabuto" he said as though he was amused "We are going to liberate poor Sasuke from those mean Leaf ninja"

Kabuto smiled right back

"Of course, how kind of you, I'll get right on preparing for the following mission"

 **Okay another chapter done**

 **I told you all I would try to have one a week out!**

 **Now onto other stuff, as you probably noticed this chapter was more focused on Sakura rather than Naruto and Sakura. This was intentional, Sakura is one of my favorite characters as she probably showed the most development out of all the Naruto characters and I didn't like how she was treated at the end of the series being left all alone and in debt and raising a daughter who is implied to not even be her biological daughter but the daughter of someone Sasuke had an affair with likely after he was already married to Sakura, and we are never told whether or not Sakura is her biological mother or not, so in short her husband cheated on her and then dropped his child by another woman on Sakura to raise while he disappeared and didn't see them for 12 years.**

 **This was horrible! She had matured into a great character and now had one of the worst endings for a main character. I was thinking of this before I wrote this chapter and decided to make this chapter mainly focus on Sakura.**

 **Now for Hinata, I actually just realized before I wrote this chapter that I hadn't really mentioned Hinata in previous chapters and originally I was going to have her lock herself in her room until she heard Naruto was better and then changed my mind as I think she would at least visit Naruto in the Hospital and with Sakura there the normally shy Hinata could become angry and erupt in violence, I may have this incident be a flashback later. Now, I want to make this clear I do not like/dislike Hinata, to me she was just like Choji and Shino, she was just kinda there and didn't contribute a whole lot to the overall story and I always believed that she more admired Naruto than loved him as the way she talked about him was the way people talk about other people they admire/ admired like Abraham Lincoln or Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King. So I think she confused admiration and love and here is some more proof that she admired him instead of loved him, remember how throughout her appearances she talked about how she wanted to be just like Naruto? When you love someone you don't want to be them, you want to be with them.**

 **Sorry for the rant** **J**

 **Next up is Itachi finally appearing! I wanted to show him learning about Sasuke and all that Jazz, what do you think Itachi is going to do?**

 **And let's not forget everyone's least favorite snake that has plans in motion**

 **Evil is coming to the Leaf Village**

 **Now for everyone's favorite parts of these Author Notes (DRUM ROLL)**

 **REVIEWS! YAY**

 **TimothyB: Thanks! I'm glad you liked the story and you'll start to see some of the stuff he'll learn next chapter! As for the clones, for the moment I have no intention of letting him use any as it was a main thing that he had originally and I wanted to have Naruto learn how to do things differently than he did before and I just feel that if I allowed him to use clones then there wouldn't be a big enough difference.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: as you can see Kakashi refers to Sasuke as a Psychopath in this chapter which I think is accurate of this Sasuke and Sakura will be there for Naruto even after he recovers, I hope it will be interesting for you all to read!**

 **Nidhua123: Thanks for the complements I hope you enjoyed this chapter!**

 **Geraze90: Who knows why Sasuke was let go I think Kishimoto did it just because he wanted to and I think the ending was a bit rushed. I hadn't thought about how Sage Mode would affect his condition, so congrats on giving me something to think about, but here's what I've thought up, by the time Naruto learns Sage Mode he'll probably have been used to fighting without ninjutsu for a while so he still likely wouldn't think about it and even if he did the more chakra you use the less time in Sage Mode he has. Hope this answered your question.**

 **Guest007: Chakra chains were not a bloodline they were a hiden which is a jutsu that only people in a clan can do like Ino-Shika-Cho clans are a good example of this they use hiden instead of blood lines, another example of how they are different is hiden need to be learned while bloodlines can just show up one day. So Naruto may learn it but he would need an Uzumaki to teach him and speaking of Uzumaki and bloodlines the Uzumaki actually do have a bloodline even though it isn't given a fancy name. The Uzumaki clan had incredible life spans and healing abilities so it isn't really Kurama intentionally healing him but his Uzumaki blood that is taking his chakra and healing him. As for the other thing I won't give it to Naruto as I do not want him to be OP and I want him to beat the odds.**

 **Thanks for reading and please review**

 **Have a nice day!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, it belongs to Kishimoto**

 **Chapter 6**

Sakura had finally taken Naruto out of the house for a walk around the village.

So far everything was going well, they walked around the market place and looked into different shops

"Hey Naruto, look at this shirt! It looks great!" Sakura said with an excited look

Naruto looked at the shirt and he wasn't a fashion person and most people would say that that would be obvious considering what he wore most of the time

"It looks good" he says trying to sound interested. It paid off for him when Sakura turned to him with cheery eye's

"Yeah me and Ino may have to come and see these shirts later" she looked playfully at Naruto

"And if you behave and eat all of your vegetables at dinner tonight I might bring you something back"

Naruto lit up

"Like Ramen!" Sakura sweat dropped

"No, Naruto, no Ramen" she deadpanned

She saw another shop and began to drag Naruto towards it

"Let's go look at those new dresses Naruto"

 **At the Hokage Tower**

Kakashi, Jiraiya, Tsunade and Gai stood in the Hokage's office as they discussed amongst themselves about Naruto Uzumaki.

Tsunade spoke up first "As some of you may be aware, Naruto has come along a long ways in his recovery, partially due to his healing" she said as the assembled people nodded their heads

"So, I believe that now is the time we should consider his training towards being re-instated as a leaf ninja. Jiraiya has begun teaching him in the art of sealing but a ninja cannot just rely on one skill set. So where do we look next."

She turned her head towards Gai

"You're the Leafs top Taijutsu specialist and expert, is there a style that you can think of that Naruto could use?"

Gai looked thoughtful for a moment before he flashed one of his signature smiles

"I admire young Naruto's youthfulness in aiming towards becoming a greater ninja and Taijutsu is the perfect place to look! While he cannot do Goken, I would recommend he use styles that conserve energy such as Jujitsu, Aikido, Tai chi, and Wing Chun and his main offensive style should deal with his strongest part, his legs, Tae Kwan Do"

Tsunade made a mental note of what he said before turning to Jiraiya

"What about your end of his training?" she asked, honestly interested in how Naruto was progressing

Jiraiya's face lit up in a smile

"That kid is definitely an Uzumaki, he may be an idiot in most areas but I was amazed when I saw how quickly he began to learn how to make and use seals. Give the kid a few more years of learning the art and he'll probably be at my level, heck, it wouldn't surprise me if he surpassed my skills in that area!"

To say the other inhabitants in the room were shocked was an understatement. It was rare that a ninja had talent in the sealing arts. In the academy the most they learned about it was how to use exploding tag and storage seals, they didn't even learn how to make their own. If this had been taught more seriously in the Academy then Naruto may have avoided being deadlast.

But Jiraiya wasn't done yet

"I've also began teaching him meditation and while the kid wasn't thrilled about learning it, he's finally studying the art and can meditate easily enough. In a short span of time he may qualify for Sage training"

"Are you serious!?" Tsunade asked. Sages were incredibly rare and her former teammate was the only Sage the Leaf village had. Sarutobi, the 3rd Hokage had been one as well but was now gone leaving the Toad Sage as the only ninja with the knowledge and training.

"Princess Tsunade, I'm offended, you should know that I wouldn't joke about this"

The rooms inhabitants looked thoughtful, then Kakashi spoke up

"Should we be doing this?"

All the heads turned towards him

"what do you mean Kakashi?" Gai said

"I mean encouraging Naruto! If he just stays in the village he can be safe, he doesn't need to go out and be a ninja and put his life on the line and us cheering him on while we should be trying to talk him out of it may end up killing him!"

Everyone looked shocked at Kakashi's statement. Finally it was Jiraiya who spoke up

"We get what you're saying Kakashi, and I understand how you feel, but even if we _did_ tell him to quit, that little brat would still push himself to the limit and potentially become a ninja again and fulfill his dream. He's more likely to survive with our help than without it"

Kakashi sighed, they were right.

"Fine, your right, but if we're going to be trying to better prepare Naruto for what is to come then I think we should talk about weapons"

Everyone turned their attention towards Kakashi

"Naruto lacks a desire to kill so I wouldn't recommend a sword or anything like that but I think Naruto would do well with a staff, it's not made to be lethal and is probably the least threatening weapon out there. Another one that might be good would be the rope dart; it's good for mid to long range attack and can be used to defend against other attacks"

Tsunade nodded her head "That sounds like it could be useful, and it's something to definitely look into"

"There's also the issue of stealth" Jiraiya said causing everyone to put their attention on him

"We all know that Naruto's chakra pretty much put a big 'here I am, come and get me' sign above his head. Normally he would learn jutsu to help better hide his chakra but now that's out of the question, so I recommend an alternative" he said pausing

"Detection" he said making those nearby take on looks that showed that they found the idea intriguing

Sensory type ninja were those who specialized in sensing chakra and Naruto had showed potential in the Academy but none of his teachers picked it up and trained him in the art and Iruka did not have the means to teach him the skills needed

"Sensory types not only sense their opponents and allies chakra but can also predict them, sense when their lying and tell things about them. If their skill is up to a high enough level" Kakashi said

"This is all interesting and we should definitely come back to this at a later date but there something else we need to discuss" Jiraiya said

"Wait, before we do that how is Naruto?" Gai asked as he had hardly had time to see the young genin since he had awoken from his coma.

Tsunade smiled a bit "His regenerative abilities are amazing, not only does he recover and heal faster but he also adapts and his body is aleady learning how to work in a new way. In the last few months since he has been awake and recovering he has progressed in a few months what normally takes years. I believe that by his 14th birthday he may be able to go on D rank missions"

Gai looked flabbergasted

Kakashi looked impressed

Jiraiya had a smirk going as if Naruto's healing all had something to do with being his student

Tsunade was envious of such an ability as unlike hers it didn't shorten his life.

"Now back to what else we need to talk about" she said with a serious gleam to her eye.

"Sasuke is being transferred to the capitol in a week and the council is furious that we're trying him as a traitor"

"The council still panders to the unyouthful Uchiha even now?" said Gai clearly unhappy

"Just the civilian side and some of the elders, the shinobi council is ready to string Sasuke by his toes and that's not even taking into account that some of their kids were nearly killed because of him. The main reason that the civilian council is still defending Sasuke is because they saw the Senju and Uchiha as the only things keeping the village safe and now that I'm too old to have kids and the Uchiha clan is all but gone they see Sasuke as their last hope" Tsunade said

"Then maybe we should announce Naruto as the true heir of the Uzumaki clan" Kakashi said

With everyone turning to look at him

"What?"

"How do you know that it was suppose to be an A rank secret!" Tsunade said

"I personally knew Kushina so I heard and was told a few things I probably shouldn't have known"

Tsunade face palmed "Of course you knew"

Gai looked around the room confused "Knew what?"

Jiraiya sat back in the chair he was using "When the Land of Whirlpools was destroyed the surviving Uzumaki clan members were sent throughout the four corners of the world. Everyone knows this story. However, what they don't know about is the royal Uzumaki family"

"The royal Uzumaki?" Gai said

"The Uzumaki clan like most clans of the time had a branch family. The Uzumaki had two branch families, which were the Land of Whirlpools Samurai and Ninja clans respectfully. The Political family was the royal family who was taught in both families techniques mainly for self defense the three families treated each other equal more or less, as they trusted each family to do their part in protecting their nation. But when the Land of Whirlpools was attacked they had some people on the inside who were apparently trusted enough to be allowed into the clan compound where they slaughtered the royal branch of the family, or at least that's what they thought. An Advisor to the Daimyo at the time had apparently had a vision of the destruction of the Land of Whirlpools and trusted his instincts and managed to save the Daimyo's youngest daughter: Kushina Uzumaki who would later marry Minato Namikaze: the 4th Hokage and would have a son: Naruto Uzumaki" Jiraiya said

Gai looked flabbergasted and appeared as if he couldn't speak before finally getting some words out

"WAIT A MOMMENT! If what you just said is true then that means that Naruto is a-"

"Daimyo" Kakashi finished in his calm, yet bored voice

"By the way" Kakashi said turning to Jiraiya "I'm taking you out to an all you can eat buffet for making Gai speechless"

"Lady Hokage if he really is who you said he was then couldn't he go to the Land of Whirlpools?" Gai asked

Ever since the destruction of the Land of Whirlpools there had been traps and dangerous seals that had apparently been activated that kept everyone out, making it impossible for anyone to get the Uzumaki clans powerful secrets. It was like the elemental nations Bermuda triangle

Ninja went in but they never came out

"Yes he could as the seals were made to keep everyone out _BUT_ the royal branch" Tsunade said

"Alternatively we could tell everyone that he's the son of the 4th Hokge" Kakashi said

"I do _NOT_ want a war with the Stone or Cloud villages right now" she said rubbing her head as she felt a headache beginning to form

So the discussions continued

 **Back with Naruto and Sakura**

"Troublesome" was what Naruto heard for the third time that day

He had been with Sakura for a while now as he would usually sit down in a bench or chair as Sakura would look at clothes and try them on.

It had been while they were out that they had run into Ino and Shikamaru.

Ino had nearly had a conemption when she saw him up and walking around and had actually began to get onto Sakura for letting him go out and about before Sakura managed to calm her down and explain everything to her

Then they had apparently decided to go shopping together and while they were in changing rooms Naruto and Shikamaru was sitting on a bench waiting for the two girls to come out and tell them how good they looked

But first there was something Naruto wanted to know

"How did you get dragged into this Shikamaru?"

Then Shikamaru said troublesome for the fourth time that day.

"I was sleeping and having a wonderful dream about watching clouds" Naruto sweatdropped

"When suddenly my mother burst into my room and chased me out of the house telling me I need fresh air. Then I decided to take a shortcut to my usual cloud watching place but Ino was on her way here and saw me and forced me to come along"

Naruto couldn't help but laugh at the image of Shikamaru, the laziest person he knew, carrying Ino's things like they were a couple.

But the laughing quickly turned into coughing where he coughed up blood again

"Naruto are you ok!?" Shikamaru asked, clearly worried

After the pain in his chest subsided he turned to Shikamaru with a pained smile

"Yeah don't worry, Grandma said that I would be coughing up blood until there isn't any more for me to cough up, but she says it'll still hurt whenever I cough"

Shikamaru looked at Naruto with a pained and guilty expression

"That sounds bad"

"It's only bad when I cough; I'm almost used to everything else"

Shikamaru wore an uncomfortable expression as he ran a hand through his hair. The truth was that he still felt guilty about what happened to Naruto on that mission and believed that if he had been a better ninja then maybe Naruto wouldn't have to go through so much pain even now when everyone else was recovered.

"Listen Naruto I-"

"Don't worry about it ya'know"

Shikamaru looked over to Naruto in surprise

"I figured that you felt bad about the mission and it wasn't your fault, we went in thinking that Sasuke had been kidnapped but he really went with them on his own and you couldn't have known that so this" he said placing his hand over the scar that was on his right chest "Is not your fault, you didn't do it and I know that in the future you'll be a great ninja and leader and you'd better make sure you are because when I'm Hokage I'm going to need an advisor"

Shikamaru couldn't help but smile in relief

"Sure, I'll be your advisor. Oh, and Naruto?"

"Yeah, Shikamaru?"

"Thank you"

Naruto just nodded his head

Inside the dressing rooms Sakura and Ino smiled after finishing easdropping on the conversation. Ino in particular as she was worried about Shikamaru beating himself up over this. luckily it didn't take much to convince his mom to kick Shikamaru out and Ino knew where he was going so she could intercept him and bring him here. Even Sakura had gone along with the plan.

Finally Sakura and Ino came out and they showed the clothes off to Naruto and Shikamaru who said they looked nice and after making their purchases the group of four left.

While they were passing a stand selling some gadgets from the Land of Snow/Spring. One of them sent a charge of electricity up some metal poles.

Normally they wouldn't have paid much attention to it

Except, this time Naruto jumped away from it and noticeably stiffened, it wasn't a large jump but it was noticed by both Shikamaru and Sakura.

They shouldn't have been surprised though.

Not all Scars are physical after all

 **Ok I decided to include Shikamaru in this because I felt like he would be having a hard time with Naruto's injuries. Also threw in some ShikaIno there. This also talked about some of the things I'm looking into giving Naruto, Now for the whole Whirlpool and Uzumaki clan thing we were never given a lot of information them or Kushina so I kinda came up with this idea from 'How did Kushina and the other Uzumaki survive Whirlpool?'. Naruto will not be OP, this is about him and Sakura dealing with Their 'Scars' both physically, mentally and emotionally.**

 **Now I am going to confront something I am afraid that most people may have misunderstood.**

 **I do not hate Hinata, she isn't my favorite character either. I personally feel like she did have potential with her backstory of her trying to bring peace to the Hyugga clan, even though I would have still preferred NaruSaku, but Hinata and that story are never really used and rarely brought up. I actually would have liked Hinata with Kiba or Sasuke. But I think she, like Shino and Chojii, had potential and wasn't really used. Another reason why I don't like Hinata, and remember I do not hate her to me she was just there sometimes, was because she was too perfect. Let me explain that a bit better, the emotions we saw from Hinata was Happy, Sad, Shy, and stalker, not sure if that last one counts. But my point is we never saw her angry or jealous or any of those negative emotions and a lot of Hinata supporters make this out to be a great thing but to me I want a character I can relate too, that means seeing them happy, sad, jealous, angry, things that make us human I want to see characters struggle and overcome the odds showing that they are human and we really didn't see that with Hinata. So when I mentioned Hinata getting angry last Chapter I was trying to show that she was not perfect that even she had a breaking point where she would flip out on someone just like we do.**

 **Now for your favorite part Reviews!**

 **UzumakiNS212: Thanks!**

 **Naru285: I actually like Sasuke so this isn't a 'Sasuke is Evil' Fic. I actually like Sasuke but I like him more as a villain as I think he makes a great one since Sasuke believes he's doing the right thing from his point of view which Villains like that are the most interesting in my opinion. This story will kinda play the whole Naruto/Sasuke thing as a moral battle, which one is the real hero, which one is right?**

 **Marevel: I couldn't find where that was explicitly stated, only saw that as what some people said. From what I could find they left it in the dark.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: I agree and Neji was one of my favorites too, still NaruHina doesn't make sense to me while NaruSaku does, well to everyman his own!**

 **Guest: I stated above why I do not hate Hinata.**

 **Geraze90: Seals will be a big thing for him later on and I'm glad you liked the chapter!**

 **Thank you for reading and please review!**

 **Have a nice day!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter 7**

The center area was crowded with the citizens of the Leaf Village.

"Can't say I'll be sad to see him go" Shikamaru said

"I'll be glad to see him get taken out of here" Kiba said with Akamaru yipping in agreement.

"And to think I use to like that jerk" Ino said

The rookie 12 were there for the same reason as everyone else

Today was the day that Sasuke was going to be moved outside the village and taken to the capitol where he would later face trial in front of the Daimyo himself.

There was a specially designed carriage for carrying prisoners that was made to keep ninja criminals in. all around the area were ANBU along with three Jounin who would be going along, Kakashi, Asuma and Genma.

"By the way" Ten Ten said looking around "Where's Naruto and Sakura?"

On a nearby rooftop where they still had a good view of the square was the two young teens.

"Part of me still can't believe that this is how our team has ended up, how did Sasuke fall this much Sakura?" Naruto asked as he sat on a chair that they had brought up with them.

"Sasuke always had darkness in him, we were just blinded to it, me most of all" Sakura said

Naruto put a hand on her shoulder "Don't blame yourself, Sakura you only wanted to see the best in him and I think he was our friend for a bit there but Sasuke just chose a different path."

"Yeah, I guess" Sakura said although she didn't sound too convinced. But before Naruto could say anything they heard a notable rise in the mutterings and whisperings from the crowd which meant only one thing.

Sasuke had arrived

It wasn't long after that they saw him with ANBU leading him as he was chained to the point where he couldn't move his arms. There were also visible seals on his body preventing chakra usage.

He looked up at the building where Naruto and Sakura was and for a moment it felt like he met both their eyes even at that distance.

Finally one of the ANBU captains said something and they opened the door to the prison carriage and moved Sasuke inside and two ANBU went in along with him obviously to watch him.

Within a few minutes later the prison carriage, the three jounin and two dozen ANBU headed out of the village with almost everyone watching until the party was out of sight.

Naruto and Sakura sat in silence until Sakura spoke up.

"Why don't we go and get some ramen?"

Needless to say Naruto smiled happily.

 **On a dirt road**

Kakashi turned his single eye from right to left, his headband pulled up so if he needed his sharingan then all he would need to do was open it.

Orochimaru was going to attack them, he was certain of it, Orochimaru would stop at nothing to get the sharingan for himself.

Out of reflex he turned and looked at everyone they brought and he knew that they most likely wouldn't be able to stop Orochimaru.

But from Jiraiya's spy network they were told that Orochimaru had been forced into a weaker body than he required when Sasuke failed to go to him in time. So there was the possibility that the Snake Sannin would be weakened.

Still, a weak Orochimaru was still more dangerous than most jounin.

Due to his enhanced sense of smell Kakashi had been placed at the head of the guard while Asuma and Genma took up both sides of the rear in case anything happened. In all honesty he would have liked to have brought more people but the three jounin and two ANBU squads had been all that the leaf could spare after the attack on the village.

He glanced back to the prison carriage where Sasuke was being held. He couldn't help but feel partially responsible for what had happened to Sasuke and his students. Sasuke was a criminal by the laws of the Land of Fire and would possibly face life in prison or execution if they could get him safely to the capitol, Sakura had now lost the love she felt towards Sasuke and now felt anger instead, she would probably never trust Sasuke even if her life depended on it, Naruto was recovering quicly from his physical injuries even though he would never recover completely and had scars from the burns and chidori, and even with the passage of the last few months they hadn't had the chance to see how he was mentally and emotionally.

He remembered how Sakura had told him about the way Naruto had reacted to the sight of electricity while they were out, how it had scared him. This fear was understandable and Naruto had possibly also gained a fear of fire from where Sasuke had set him on fire. What worried him the most however, was Naruto's trust in people. Naruto was one of those people who always tried to see the good in people and offer a degree of trust. But now Sasuke, one of the people he had trusted most, had tried to kill him, it worried Kakashi that Naruto would find it hard to trust people he didn't consider good friends.

Knowing that they had been traveling for a while he held up his hand signaling the ANBU to stop

"Ok everyone, rest up!"

The ANBU that had been carrying Sasuke's portable jail cell eagerly set it down, stretching and rubbing their arms.

Asuma and Genma walked up to Kakashi

"You sure you wanna stop here Kakashi?" Genma asked

"We need to rest and we're going to be traveling this road for a few days, so we'll be open targets anywhere we are" Kakashi said

"Agreed, and the more rested we are the more we'll be prepared to defend against attackers" Asuma said

Any further conversation was halted as the three jounin and most ANBU tensed instinctively from the feeling of someone watching them

In the ninja world when you felt someone watching you it wasn't something you could ignore, and it usually wasn't anything that was good for you.

"How many?" Asuma asked Kakashi

"At least 4x what we have"

And then the battle started

First the enemy came from the tree's and the ANBU quickly cut them down.

Then more came from the ground, then the air.

For the most part the sound ninja were no threat to the leaf ninja. But the trouble came from the large number of them and the special weapons they carried, no doubt Orochimaru's creations.

Kakashi had just cut a sound ninja's melody arm off with a lightning enhanced kunai when he heard two ANBU make pained yell and the smell of blood from where Sasuke was being kept. He used the **Body Flicker** to teleport over the distance. He quickly ran to the prison carriage.

"Kakashi, their retreating!" Kakashi heard Asuma say behind him

"Yes because they got what they came for" he said

Inside the carriage lay the bodies of the two ANBU who had been in there with Sasuke, they had their weapons drawn but it had done them little good judging by the blood splatter. Kakashi could tell just from looking that the blade that had done this had been the Kusanagi, Orochimaru's weapon of choice.

"How many did we lose?" he asked Asuma

"Barely anyone, these sound nin were incapable of battaling on our level, they were cannon fodder. Meant to distract us with their sheer numbers while the real threat came in and grabbed the Uchiha"

Kakashi clenched his fists

 _'_ _Those who break the rules are trash! But those who abandon their comrades are even worse than trash!'_ He could hear Obito saying in his head.

Orochimaru hadn't just abandoned his comrades; he sent them to be killed.

And perhaps even worse was that Sasuke was free and Kakashi knew that this wasn't the last they'd hear from him.

 **Back in the Leaf Village**

Naruto had finally gotten his first taste of ramen in months since he had gotten injured.

Ramen had never tasted so good.

Not only was he finally getting to eat his favorite food but all of his friends were eating with him as well, even Iruka had managed to make it out.

At times like these Naruto didn't have to think about all the things that were troubling him.

He looked over at Sakura while they laughed at a story that Lee was telling with wild charades with Neji throwing in things Lee forgot or exaggerated.

If only things could stay this way.

They were at Ichiraku's for hours until the sun had gone down and as Naruto and Sakura left there was a silence between the two.

Suddenly Sakura realized that Naruto was no longer walking beside her and she turned around to see him standing up the street a ways, looking up at the sky.

"Naruto?" she asked

"You feel it too right Sakura?" he said

She understood what he meant, she'd had this bad feeling in her heart for a while now. Like someone had pointed a freezing kunai right at it.

"Sasuke's escaped" Naruto said

Sakura didn't say anything, Kakashi had said that Orochimaru would likely try to free Sasuke, but she was scared that if she said that she believed he had aloud then it would happen in real life and all she really wanted was to see Sasuke locked up in the deepest darkest hole in the Land of Fire and the key melted and thrown away. She still had nightmares of Sasuke killing Naruto.

She would do whatever she could to keep that from happening.

"We should go home Naruto, I have training in the morning with Lady Hokage and you have to finish those seals before Master Jiraiya gets back" Sakura said

Naruto winced a little

"But Sakuraaa! Those seals are hard, how does he expect me to understand them just from reading about them!"

"He helps you when he's here Naruto"

And they continued back and forth the rest of the way home.

The future held many challenges for them, but it also held limitless hope as well.

 **Okay everyone that is a chapter done for now!**

 **I never liked how they treated Orochimaru through most of Shippuden as they made him out to be this big threat and then he became a B list bad guy.**

 **In this chapter I mainly wanted to see Sasuke be freed and that he will be a future threat to the heroes of the story**

 **Now for Reviews:**

 **TimothyB: I actually plan on letting him use a staff as it is one of my favorite weapons. Hope you liked the chapter.**

 **Aevrum: Nobody knew that Kushina was royalty, not even the Daimyo, so he wouldn't of had a better childhood since no one knew and I was unsure about doing the royal thing too, however I have a plan where it will play a part in a future part of the story, but other than that it won't have a large impact on the story in general, so don't worry about it too much. I'm a big NaruSaku fan and I appreciate you speaking up for it and I would probably have been more ok with NH if they had actually developed it more, so while I wish Hinata would have been more developed as a character, I'll forever be a NaruSaku fan as I have been since I saw the bench scene in the anime years ago.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: Actually I plan on making Naruto afraid of both fire and lightning as he** ** _was_** **set on fire and I think anyone would be afraid after that. Sakura and his friends halping him with all of this is a large part of the story and one of the things I didn't like about the Naruto series was that Naruto repeatedly talked about how you need the streangth of others to help you with the things you face, but at the end it was Naruto and Sasuke getting so powerful that they didn't need any help from anyone and the rest of the characters kinda became pointless.**

 **Guest: The only reason Haku could do one handed seals was because he had a bloodline which he hadn't mastered, if he had mastered it then he wouldn't have needed to use and signs at all, as Naruto does not have a bloodline like Haku the handsigns wouldn't work for him. Kakashi actually mentioned the single hand signs in the fight with Haku. I appreciate you understanding what I'm trying to do with some characters.**

 **Wubbzy: Glad you liked the story, hope you continue to enjoy it!**

 **Boban: I don't hate Hinata as she hasn't really done anything for me to hate her character, to me she was this character who played no important role in the story even though she could have, and I'm not really trying to bash her character but I'm trying to make her character less 'perfect' and more human, her and Sakura will not get along well and I have a plan for her in the future of this story as she will play a larger role.**

 **Well that's all for now**

 **Please review and thank you for reading**

 **Have a nice day!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

 **Chapter 8**

"Why are we doing this again?" Naruto said in pain as Kakashi and Gai helped him to stretch in ways Naruto originally thought humanly impossible.

"Simple Naruto, the new style we have outlined for you involves a large amount of kicks and agility as opposed to you original style of just simply running in and trying to punch your enemies lights out." Kakashi said

"My style wasn't that bad Kakashi Sensei"

"What style?"

"DO NOT WORRY YOUNG NARUTO FOR THE FLAMES OF YOUTH ARE STRONG IN YOU AND WE SHALL YOTHFULLY INCREASE YOUR TAIJUTSU MIGHT!" said Gai as he introduced himself into the conversation.

On the outside are of the training field was Lee, Neji and Ten Ten who had already finished their training under their Sensei recently.

"I'm not so sure about training Naruto, I mean he's still heavily injured and I remember that they said he was in horrible shape I mean seriously he's lost most of one of his lungs! Is it really safe for him to be a ninja?" Ten Ten asked, even though she didn't know the blonde well she knew he was friends with both of her teammates and had even went with them to visit him in the hospital when he was still in a coma and just the thought of everything that her hero, Lady Tsunade had said was wrong with him and the extent of his injuries still concerned her.

Beside her Neji sighed "Out of everyone I have ever met he is probably the most stubborn aside from Lee, even if I would advise against his attempts to become a ninja again I know he would vehemently disregard what I said and continue on his path"

Lee nodded sporting a grin "Even through everything Naruto has gone through he still presses on! We should all aim to be more like him and follow in his springtime of youth, that is why I have made him my eternal rival!"

 _'_ _Finally! He has removed me from his rival, maybe I can finally get some peace from Lee now'_

"Other than you, of course, Neji I still consider you to be my eternal rival as well!"

Neji's head just shagged in defeat

 _'_ _Why me?'_

 **Hokage Tower**

Sakura was digging around in the records for Tsunade but her mind was distracted.

Today was the day that Naruto began his Taijutsu training and she would have liked to have been there and the only reason she wasn't was because all they were doing was stretches that should not cause any harm to Naruto's previous injuries.

Tsunade had also told her that she needed an extra pair of hands today and that she would be required to be with Naruto once they moved past the stretching activities and moved into more stressful things such as running and jumping. She could see the Hokage's thinking but she still couldn't shake the feeling that she had with not wanting to leave his side and worrying about him.

She had talked to Kakashi about how Naruto had reacted when he saw the electricity at market and he had told her not to worry about it for now. But she still couldn't help but worry about everything, another thing that worried her was that he didn't talk as much as he used to, sure, he talked to her and their friends regularly but it was when he interacted with new people that he seemed to act more distant and less talkative and unless you knew Naruto then you probably wouldn't have noticed anything off. 

As Sakura located another file she had been looking for she placed it on the others before looking for the next one on the list when she heard someone coming down into the record room and once she saw who it was she couldn't help but smile

"Ino what are you doing down here?" Sakura said to the blonde

"My dad borrowed some of these files and asked me to return them, what are you doing here?" Ino asked as she walked to her friend

"I thought Naruto was supposed to start training today?"

"He was but the Hokage said that it was nothing I was needed for as there was not risk to Naruto so she has me getting some things she needs to look over. By the way how did you know he started training today?"

"Shikamaru told me"

After Naruto and Shikamaru had talked and Shikamaru had lost the weight he had been carrying over Naruto's injuries they had become good friends, not best friends, but close enough.

Ino sat down near where Sakura was obviously wanting a lengthy conversation about some subject that Sakura felt like she should be running from

"Speaking of Naruto, what is your relationship as you too seem to be more than friends"

Sakura bit her lip as she nervously thought about it.

It was true that her and Naruto's relationship had changed and she wasn't completely sure on what they were now

They were definitely more than friends in her opinion but they hadn't moved into the romance area yet and she was uncertain and scared of that. She was scared that these feelings she may have towards her teammate were just from what had happened to him like she had heard where some nurses had fallen in love with patients. But another part of her felt like she hadn't gotten to know the real Naruto before and now that she had come to know him she couldn't deny that she had strong feelings for him

But she would never tell Ino this

" I'm not sure what we are Ino were more than friends but we haven't confessed or let each other know that we like each other in a profound way"

"I don't buy that for a moment! Naruto has always made it plain to the entire world that he's head over heels for you, I think your just worried about going to him and telling him you like him back because of everything that happened with Sasuke and you need to let Naruto know what you feel about him because if you wait too long you'll regret it"

Sakura didn't say anything back but she knew Ino was right. She had thought about this a lot and the more she thought about it the more she became convinced that she hadn't been in love with Sasuke but rather an imaginary Sasuke that she had convinced herself was the real one.

Ino placed a hand on Sakura's shoulder

"Sakura, your almost 14 years old now and soon you'll be 16 and old enough to get married so it might be a good idea to let the boy you like know that and you also have to worry about Hinata, I've heard she's gotten more courageous and while she hasn't talked to Naruto yet I wouldn't bet on it staying that way and you'll have to compete with her for his heart."

Sakura looked back at Ino "That's true for you too you know, that Sand girl seems to have taken an interest in Shikamaru"

"That is a completely different situation!"

"I don't think it is so when you confess to Shikamaru I'll tell Naruto, deal"

"Vice versa on the deal too, I don't see why I have go first but deal"

For a moment the too smiled at each other before Sakura gathered the files and scrolls and turned back to Ino

"Well, I had better get these back up to Lady Tsunade before I get in trouble, see you Ino"

"Bye Sakura"

 **Later that day**

Naruto sat on a rocking chair in his room after the long day he had spent with the most relaxed Jounin and the least relaxed Jounin.

To be honest he had become tired just from the stretches alone and they said that if everything went to schedule then he may be able to go on a mission in about 4-5 months.

He opened his eyes when there was a light knock on the door

"Come in"

Sakura walked in to his room in her pajamas… well that was the wrong word, Naruto wore pajamas, Sakura wore a large white t shirt and black gym shorts. It was a common practice for her to come in and check on him every night right before she went to bed so Naruto was used to seeing her like this.

She sat down on the only other chair in the room and made herself comfortable

"So how was training today?" she asked

"It was harder than I thought and to be honest I didn't know human bodies could bend in ways like that"

Sakura smiled sweetly at him "I'm sure you'll get through it"

"So how did it go working for the old hag?" he asked

"She mainly had me running errands and getting and delivering papers for her the highlight was when I ran into Ino there, she asked about you"

"What did you two talk about" he asked and Sakura went red in the face

"None of your business!"

"If it's about me then isn't it my business automatically?"

"NO!"

Naruto sweat dropped at his teammates reaction

"Ooooookay then…" he said

Sakura sighed

She reached over and grabbed his hands

"Look Naruto there are some things I want to tell you and we can talk about them sometime but for now I'm not ready yet so please try and be patient, okay?"

He flashed her one of his classic grins

"Sure thing Sakura take your time!"

She returned his smile "Thank you Naruto"

She stood up and began walking towards the door

"Is there anything you need tonight Naruto?" she asked

"No I'll be fine, goodnight Sakura"

"Goodnight Naruto"

And with that Sakura went to her room

She knew for sure she had strong feelings for Naruto and while she wasn't sure they were love yet she thought they were and she would find out but for now she would go to sleep with dreams about the future.

However, unknown to the two young ninja there is a crow watching the house from across the street and if one was to look closely they would see two Sharingan eyes…

 **A few miles outside the Leaf Village**

A young man with black hair and dressed in a black coat with red clouds opened his eyes

"Hm, this is most interesting. I wonder how this will turn out"

 **Okay a chapter is done!**

 **Sorry I haven't updated in a while but I was having my last few weeks of school and then final exams so I've been busy but good news is that I passed all of my classes.**

 **Now I mentioned about them being able to get married at 16 and before anyone complains I have heard that is the age where they can get married in Japan.**

 **I wanted to include some of Sakura dealing with her feelings this chapter and some of the conflicts going on there.**

 **Also Itachi has finally returned, bet you readers thought I had forgotten about him!**

 **But guess what!?**

 **He'd Baaaaaaack!**

 **Now for what I'm sure is everyone's favorite part of this the…**

 **Reviews!**

 **Danmaku-Overlord: Sasuke will appear later and Naruto will be going on his first mission since awakening in a couple of chapters.**

 **Fromaster24: I plan on Orochimaru and Sasuke still being big bad villains and I plan on continuing this story until the very end so I hope you enjoyed this chapter.**

 **Merchant of Blue Death: I'm glad you liked my story. I feel like Orochimaru should have been kept as a big and dangerous villain and I didn't have an issue with the Akatsuki when they first appeared in the original series as they were made out to be an organization that controlled organized crime around the shinobi world like a cross between the Mafia and some secret society. So I didn't mind them in that aspect but they changed into a different kind of group in Shippuden. As for the whole NaruSaku aspects of the story the whole relationship thing is popping up more in the story and I hope your happy with how this all goes.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: Yes, Sasuke is now free but remember that Itachi is still out there.**

 **Zafnak: thanks for the correction, I appreciate it!**

 **Guest: thanks, but I'm not going out of my way to bash her I'm just trying to make her less 'perfect' and more human.**

 **Bellum: Thank you, I appreciate the advice and I actually have an outline of how I want the story to go, it's just getting there and filling in the blanks that are difficult for me and I've been trying to improve my stories and add more detail into them as I go. So I appreciate you pointing out ways I can improve.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter. 9**

"I can't believe I'm doing something this lame again" Naruto said as he pulled another weed out of the flowerbed with Sakura looking over his shoulder to make sure that he doesn't pick the flowers this time.

He had been approved for D rank missions a month ago but he hadn't done any until the previous week as he was trying to get use to his new training. He was even being tutored by Iruka during the weekends to help improve his mental skills for on the field work, not to mention that the not-so-dynamic duo of Kakashi and Gai probably made the weirdest pair of teachers to ever grace the Elemental Nations.

"Don't complain too much Naruto, Lady Tsunade could always take you off the active roster and you would get to train with Gai Sensei and Lee _everyday_ " Sakura said making Naruto involuntarily shiver at the thought. Yes Gai was okay in his own way, and Lee was a good friend, but he doesn't think he could spend every day with them. Being stuck with them 3-4 days a week for a couple of hours had made him look at Neji and Ten Ten with a bit awe at dealing with the two 'YOUTHFUL' ninja without losing their minds.

"I could live without that" Naruto said as images of unbreakable sunset Genjutsu popped up in his mind.

 _'_ _Lee can't even use Genjutsu, so how does he make that sunset?'_ he thought to himself.

"You'll live through it" Sakura said, giggling a bit at how Naruto had paled in complexion. Naruto had been working hard, as usual, in trying to become capable of doing missions outside the village. More than once he had pushed himself too hard and Sakura, Kakashi, and whoever else was with them would force him to take a break.

Things had gradually begun to look better in the Leaf Village as old buildings were repaired and new ones were built. There were even envoys coming and going from the village. The Sand Village council wanted to make a peace treaty with the village and they would take turns sending representatives to the other villages.

Ino had told Sakura that there was a rumor that the new Kazekage would be chosen soon, which was good because even if the Leaf and Sand agreed on a treaty they would still need both Kages to sign it and that would be pretty difficult for the Sand to do as they currently didn't have one.

"Hey Naruto?" she said, catching the blondes attention.

"Yeah Sakura, What is it?" He said

"Who do you think the next Kazekage will be?" she was honestly curious as when she had seen the Sand ninja who had helped with the Sasuke retrieval mission, even though they had previously been enemies, they seemed genuinely worried for Naruto. Even Gaara, who still scared Sakura, had come with the envoys from the Sand Village and would usually come by and check on him right after getting into the village.

Naruto thought back to a memory he had

 **FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

Naruto lay in his hospital bed just staring at the ceiling.

Sakura had gone home to see her parents and he was currently alone until the next time a nurse came in to check how he was doing.

"Naruto Uzumaki" a dark voice said.

Naruto looked in the direction and if it had not been for the medicine the old hag had given him he probably would have jumped out of his skin.

There, in a dark corner of the room was Gaara, the Jinchuriiki host of the One Tail.

"How long have you been in here standing there?" Naruto asked, his voice quiet, both because of his injuries and the fact that _EVERYTHING_ about his current situation was creepy.

Gaara ignored his question, walking towards him he looked Naruto up and down.

"Are you in pain?" he asked with the smallest amount of concern in his voice.

"Yeah but it's not as bad as it was since Granny gave me something to help, but it still hurts in my chest."

Gaara nodded again thinking back to the day that the Sasuke retrieval mission had happened, he remembered how afraid he had felt when he saw the white haired man, who he now knew as Kakashi Hatake, carrying the bloody body past him and the boy named Lee.

He and Lee both had looked at each other with horrified faces, and even with the exhaustion they felt and their injuries they rushed as much as they could back to the village.

It wouldn't be until after he arrived that he would find out that it was the Uchiha that had given the young Uzumaki those injuries and he swore to himself that if Naruto died he would make sure that the Uchiha would as well.

"I will try to keep my visit short then, but I wish to ask you a question and hear your response"

Once Gaara saw that he had Naruto's attention he continued

"You wish to be Hokage one day, why?"

Naruto looked surprised at the question but then he looked thoughtful and scratched his chin. Gaara notice that his right arm didn't move at all but decided not to ask about it.

"Well, originally I wanted to become Hokage just so people would stop ignoring me and have to pay attention to me and show me respect" Naruto said.

Gaara noticed the past tense.

"And now?"

Naruto looked up at him with a smile.

"Now I have friends, people that I love and that love me and I want to protect them. So I want to be Hokage to protect the people who are precious to me."

Gaara gave a small smile

"I see, thank you for your honesty. Hopefully one day we can greet each other as fellow Kage"

Naruto smiled at the Sand ninja. "Bet on it!"

Naruto reached to the side and pulled up a fruit basket

"Hey, Busy Brow and Bushier Brow Sensei got this for me, but I can't eat most of it right now and since it'll go bad, do you…"

He paused because as he turned around Gaara had disappeared just as mysteriously as he had before.

"…want any?"

He quickly darted his head around the room and looking at all the room that he could see from his bed

When Sakura arrived an hour later she was confused when Naruto asked her to search every dark corner, crevice even under the bed.

After she had finishe and told Naruto that there was no one around all he did was give the fruit basket a look.

"Maybe he doesn't like fruit"

"Huh?"

Sakura just became even more confused.

 **END OF FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

"I'm going to bet on Gaara" Naruto said

"Really? Why do you think that?" Sakura asked, confused by how confident her teammate sounded

"Because he told me that he wanted to become Kazeikage" Naruto said and Sakura couldn't help but laugh

"Why does that sound familiar?" Sakura said playfully.

"I don't have a clue" Naruto said with the same tone

They both laughed together for a moment

"This is fun" Naruto said

"Picking weeds?" Sakura said

"Nooo, just laughing at stupid stuff and picking on each other" Naruto said

"Yeah it is" Sakura said flashing him a smile

They just looked at each other for a moment before Sakura talked to Naruto in a soft tone.

"Naruto?" she said

"Yes Sakura?" he said back, hypnotized by her voice

"You'd better hurry you have training with Gai sensei and Kakashi Sensei in two hours"

As soon as the words reached Naruto's brain and he processed what she said he took on a disappointed look.

"Don't do that to me Sakura!" he said, in a mostly fake pout

"Do what?" she said innocently

"Hey you two!" a vice cried at them fro across the street drawing there attention.

"Ayame!" Naruto cried happily at seeing the person who was as close to a big sister as he had

"How are you doing today Ayame" Sakura said politely

"I'm pretty good, today's the day my dad gave me off so I decided to do some shopping" Ayame said walking across the road to the young genin.

"So are you back on missions already?" she asked Naruto seeing the pile of weeds beside him, it was no secret that after Naruto got out of the hospital she had became even more protective of him.

"Yeah, but Granny's only letting me do these stupid D-ranks that even Konohamaru could do!"

"Well Konohamaru didn't have a hole punched through his chest" Ayame said in a tone that tolf him that he should know better than to complain.

"Seriously Naruto you almost died and had a lot of people worried" Ayame said flashing him a sad look that made him feel guilty and made him remember one of his check up's with Tsunade.

 **FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

Tsunade's hand glowed green as it lingered over Naruto's right side.

She hummed to herself in thought as she finished the diagnostic jutsu.

"You seem to be recovering well, thankfully the 9 tails chakra seems to be helping your body recover and adapt with the new injuries and limitations you now have. Your fortunate to be alive Naruto, if Kakashi had even been a few seconds later we wouldn't be talking" Tsunade said sternly to the young blonde

"I know Grandma, everyone has already said I almost died-"

"No Naruto" Tsunade said cutting him off "You did die, your heart stopped multiple times and we were luckily able to restart it and repair your body enough to be stabilized but I want you to remember Naruto that you _DIED_ on the table and it's a miracle that you came back"

Naruto sat there unable to speak.

Tsunade continued "I'm telling you this for a very specific reason Naruto, Medical Ninjutsu has it's limits, it can only heal so much and a medical ninja cannot bring the dead back to life. Your Regenerative Healing Factor is the same, it can heal you of cuts, bruises and broken bones in record time but getting your lung destroyed? Not possible we managed to patch it up to where it works but your lung is only able to work at around 30% of what it was capable of , your body is healing itself as best it can and we're using Medical Ninjutsu to help you recover faster, but you will never be able to take the hits and damage that you used to" she stopped letting her words sink in to the somber blond

"Your right arms chakra system is all messed up, if you'll remember most jutsu needs handsigns, and how this all affects you is simple. If you think of a persons chakra system as being like they're circulatory system, then you know you have pathways for the chakra to travel however there are also places where the chakra exits and at these 'exits' there is something that normally allows the person to mold there chakra, in the ninja world we mainly use the ones in our ringers to mold our chakra via hand signs, however in your hands most of these spots that allow for you to mold chakra in your fingers was destroyed by this Dark Chakra Chidori's Lightning"

"What this all means is that you can no longer do things the same as you use to" Tsunade said

"I know that Granny! I know I have to figure out a new way to fight-" he was cut off again

"That is not what I meant! You will have to learn how to do almost everything differently, you'll basically have to learn to live differently!" Tsunade yelled back at Naruto

 **PRESENT**

"Sorry, I promise I'll try to never worry you like that again" Naruto said in a serious tone that surprised the two girls.

"Anyways I'll let you get back to your mission but I want you to visit soon Naruto, Dad misses you"

"I will Ayame, tell him I said high" Naruto told her as she left.

 **4 hours later**

"I want to summon Gammabunta!" Naruto yelled as Kakashi, Sakura and Gai watched as Naruto yelled at the Toad Sage, Jiraiya.

Naruto had trained with Gai and Kakashi for well over an hour in defensive moves, kicks, reversals and various other things when Jiraiya had turned up.

Apparently his last mission ended early and he had tracked Naruto down after having a talk with Tsunade. When Kakashi and Gai had given him permission to train Naruto for the rest of the time they had, Jiraiya had decided to try to teach Naruto to summon without hand signs.

Jiraiya wanted him to go for Gamakichi or Gamatatsu.

Naruto wanted to impress everyone by summoning the Boss, Gamabunta.

So with the two most stubborn Leaf ninja with different views they had naturally begun to argue.

Jiraiya face palmed as he realized they were running out of time.

"Look you brat, the summoning jutsu has recoil to it, so the more powerful the summon the more stress it puts on your body and Tsunade only gave us permission to summon Toads the size of Gamakichi so we are summoning Gamakichi!"

Naruto prepared to argue back only for Sakura to walk up behind him and slap the back of his head.

"I may not be able to punch you but I guess slapping your head when you're being stupid will have to do" she said taking a breath

"Naruto you are a 13 year old Genin and Lord Jiraiya is a master of using the summoning jutsu, so in other words I'M SICK OF YOU TWO ARGUING SO SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO HIM!" she said before walking back to where Kakashi and Gai were.

 _'_ _She has the same temper as Tsunade'_ Jiraiya thought, remembering when he had a similar argument with his sensei Sarutobi and Tsunade had said almost the same thing as Sakura.

"Talk about Déjà vu" he muttered to himself before turning his attention back to Naruto.

"Now that that's dealt with I should explain how you'll need to learn to do this. I can summon without hand signs" Jiraiya said biting his thumb. "But I usually don't because it takes longer than it takes to use hand signs" at this Jiraiya spread a line of blood on his right hand and took on a face of concentration. After a moment he slammed his hand on the ground with a yell of **"SUMMONING JUTSU!"**

There out of the smoke appeared an orange and yellow toad the size of a grown man.

"Cool Pervy Sage teach me how you did that!" Naruto yelled with stars in his eyes.

 _'_ _He fell for it hook line and sinker'_ was the collective thought of those present.

Jiraiya grinned proudly.

"You see normally when you perform the hand seals it connects you with the contract allowing you to create the time-space seal without actually drawing it yourself. But to use it without hand signs you need to tap into the connection you have with toads through the contract, gather up chakra in your hand after applying blood and draw the seal in your mind and then you can summon" he said boastfully

"Huh?" Naruto said clueless.

Jiraiya sighed

"Let me put it this way. You tap into your inner toad, put blood on your hand like normal, imagine the seal and then try to summon Gamakichi" he said slowly

Naruto's face lit up "Now I get it"

"I sure hope so" Kakashi said on the side of the field from behind his book

"Understanding it and doing it are two different things Naruto, don't get cocky" Sakura said

"YOSH! LET THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BECOME AN INFERNO OF YOUTH!" Gai said performing the nice guy pose.

"What does that even mean?" Kakashi said sweat dropping at the sunset image that had appeared behind the green clad Jounin.

Naruto looked at the Sannin with a look of exasperation

"But I don't know how to make that seal!" he complained

"I know" Jiraiya said with a cocky grin as he pulled out a scroll and opened it to reveal a storage seal. Activating the seal there was a puff of smoke which revealed a pile of books and scrolls.

Naruto fell to his knees surrounded by a cloud of depression.

"You have got to be kidding me, I can't read all of those" he said eyeing the books and scrolls in disdain.

"Oh you'll read them all, I'll make sure of it" Sakura said

"Save me!" he said to his two Jounin trainers

"KNOWLEDGE IS YOUTHFUL YOUNG NARUTO!" Gai said

"Reading is fun" Kakashi said looking up from his book

"Traitors" Naruto said.

"Start with this scroll, Chapter 1 fits you perfectly 'Space-time seals for dummies'" Jiraiya said handing him one of the books from the pile

"Why me?" Naruto said

"Since you'll be here reading Naruto, I have somewhere to be" Sakura said as she began to leave the training ground.

"Sakura wait! You can't just leave me here alone!" Naruto cried reaching out for her dramatically.

"You'll be fine I promise and you're not alone Kakashi sensei, Gai sensei and Lord Jiraiya are here too"

Naruto cried anime tears as she left and Jiraiya began pointing things out that he needed to pay attention too in the book.

"And after we do some studying we'll do a two hour meditation session"

"SOMEONE HELP ME!"

 **AT TRAINING GROUND 7**

Sakura slowed her pace as she entered the training ground that held so many memories, good and bad. Neither her nor Naruto had come here since the last time they were here with Sasuke. She was sure that Kakashi still came as he had once told them that he had friends on the memorial stone that was in the center of the training ground.

But the fact that so few people came here now made it perfect for what she had in store.

"Glad you were able to make it earlier than expected" she heard a voice say up ahead

Standing there was Shikamaru as well as the rest of the Sasuke retrieval team and Shino minus the Sand siblings.

"Lord Jiraiya's mission ended earlier so he decided to train Naruto in seals, allowing me to get here earlier" she said as Shikamaru nodded.

"We weren't doing much except catching up to pass the time anyway" he said

Sakura took a breath before speaking

"Thank you all for coming here tonight. I know not all of you are actually happy with me calling you out here" she said "But we have an important issue that we need to discuss"

"Sasuke" she said with all eyes snapping on her right after she said it. Sasuke was still a sore subject for all of them, the fact alone that he had been their comrade had meant that they trusted him to an extent, and when he had attempted to kill Naruto and betrayed them it had shattered all of that trust and replaced it with anger and pain.

"If we're gonna be talking about that jerk then shouldn't we have Naruto here?" Kiba asked

"I agree, he was the one most injured by the Uchiha" Shino said

"I'm sure Sakura had her reasons for not inviting him" Neji said with a solemn looking Lee beside him.

"If I were to venture a guess I would say that it's because Naruto is very forgiving and couldn't hold a grudge to save his life, am I right?" Shikamaru said

"Yes" Sakura said quietly, Naruto's kind nature was one of her favorite things about her blonde haired friend but for what they were going to be discussing it would only get in the way of what she was going to be talking with them about.

"We all know that Naruto won't hold a grudge against Sasuke and if he believed Sasuke had reformed then he would welcome him as a friend, that's just who Naruto is, someone who believes in second chances. However Sasuke is too dangerous and he could become the second Itachi Uchiha if nothing is done" Sakura said.

"So what are you suggesting?" Choji said "That we hunt Sasuke down and kill him?"

"I'm ok with that" Kiba said

"We don't exactly have a choice given the threat level that a Sasuke trained by Orochimaru presents" Shikamaru said

"What Sasuke did was most unyouthful" said Lee quietly as he looked down at his hands.

"Still what you are asking us is to essentially go to war with the entire Sound Village and Orochimaru by ourselves and while the Sound is a small village it is still a ninja village led by Orochimaru nonetheless" Neji said

"We cannot rush into this single mindedly" Shino said

"And we won't" Sakura said "I say that we train first and study the Sharingan and Orochimaru for weaknesses and when we're stronger we take Sasuke down once and for all"

"Easier said than done. I highly doubt that we'll ever be able to take down Orochimaru with just us, we'd probably need a larger strike force" Shikamaru said

"But if we let too many people in on this then Naruto will inevitably find out" Shino said

"But we can't let Sasuke get away with what he did to Naruto!" Kiba said

"I'm not saying that we do, I'm just saying that an attack on the Sound Village itself is ridiculous to consider with just us" Shino replied back to his teammate

"What about missions?" Lee asked

"Huh?" everyone looked at Lee surprised.

"Well the Sound Village is still a ninja village so it's ninja will still have to do missions and Sasuke is a Sound ninja now so he will have to go on missions out of the village eventually" Lee said plainly.

"Why did none of us notice that?" Choji asked, scratching his head.

"Because it was so obvious we missed it" Shikamaru said, face palming at missing the most obvious thing he should have realized.

"So we could get Sasuke while he's out on missions" Sakura said to herself

"It'll be easy to find out when he begins doing missions as he is obviously an Uchiha and his mission record will become public knowledge" Neji said

"Then we could find out about a mission he's on, or draw him out with a mission he can't refuse!" Sakura said in understanding at how they could accomplish their task

Shikamaru nodded his head as ideas already began to form in his head "Then I recommend we head home before anyone gets suspicious of us and we can meet again at some other time."

As everyone began to head their separate ways none of them noticed the crows flying nearby, watching them.

 **Hidden Sound Village**

"So the 9 Tails Jinchuriki is training to be a ninja again is he?" Orochimaru said to Kabuto as he watched Sasuke train in a session against some of his ninja.

"That boy would do well to give up, I'd wager he has a little more than 1% chance of success"

This comment surprised Kabuto

"I would have given him a 0% chance, why do you think he has any chance at all Lord Orochimaru?"

"Because the Boy is like Jiraiya at his age and is as stubborn as his mother Kushina Uzumake, I've learned that there is always a chance of success with people like them, even slim ones" Orochimaru said with a smile on his face.

"It'll be interesting to see what he does and what the future holds in store for him"

 **Down in the Arena**

Sasuke's kick landed in the face of another Sound nin Orochimaru had thrown at him

Even though he was fighting multiple opponents his mind was elsewhere, remembering his last conversation with Kakashi.

He had failed!

In his mind this was unacceptable, Itach wouldn't have failed and so he wouldn't either.

Before he killed his brother he would find Naruto and finish what they had started.

He would kill all those who he calls friends in front of him and only when he knew the pain and loneliness that Sasuke had lived with would he take Naruto's head.

Sakura had humiliated him in the hospital so he would come for her as well; however instead of killing her he had other plans instead.

At this Sasuke smiled, he would burn that Village with his hatred and this world would bow before him and all those who had stood against him would fall before him!

 **Hyugga Clan Compound.**

Hiashi and Hanabi watched through the wall with their Byakugan's as Hinata destroy mannequin after mannequin with her gentle fist with yells of fury.

Hiashi sweat dropped at the sight before him

"Is it just me or has your sister been more… passionate about her ninja training the last several months" Hiashi said to his youngest daughter.

"No and I believe a more appropriate wording would be 'obsessed with getting stronger'. Also, why are you wondering about this now after all this time?" Hanabi asked her father.

"Originally I just thought this was temporary, like after the village was invaded and she trained harder than normal for a whole month before going back to normal, but this whole new change in her shows no sign of slowing down" he said "when I picture who she was all those months ago compared to how she is now, I find it quite unnerving. I can't help but wonder what caused this change"

Hanabi wondered if she should tell her father about the times that her older sister had gotten really involved with her training she would destroy the dummies while saying something and the word 'Sakura', she then wondered if it would further unnerve her father if she told him that her sister held such rage against cherry blossom trees.

She decided not to as they continued to watch her sister.

 **Outside**

Hinata shattered another dummy into splinters with her Gentle Fist strikes.

She was determined to get stronger so she could protect Naruto! With how he was injured now he would need her to help him not that Haruno, who had hurt him and loved that treacherous Uchiha boy!

She would become strong like Naruto, she would show him that she was strong too and then when she had become like him she would tell him how much she loved him and then she would win his heart and take him away from Sakura Haruno!

She didn't understand how he could just stay close to her after what happened to him? He should have kept his distance from the girl that had hurt him and hit him!

She had watched him for years…

She hadn't left the Clan compound much while she trained, but she remembered about how she had seen Naruto and Sakura walking months ago and how Naruto had nearly fell and Sakura had caught him and helped him to a bench to sit down where he said something and she laughed.

 _'_ _That should have been me!'_

"SAKURA!" she yelled destroying another dummy.

 **Back inside**

"Did she just yell Sakura!" Hiashi asked, confused "Is that a new jutsu she is trying or a battle cry, either way it is a bit strange"

Hanabi shook her head "That's not it she just really doesn't like cherry blossom trees" she said

Hiashi looked at his daughter for a moment before turning back to look at Hinata

"That's odd, but if it motivates her I don't see a problem with it. At least it isn't another Leaf ninja she holds such rage for"

Hanabi nodded her head in agreement

Somewhere in the village a certain pink haired genin sneezed

 **Later at the Haruno Houshold**

"How was training today Naruto?" Sakura's father asked their house guest as he and his wife and daughter prepared the dinner table.

"My brain hurts" he said

"You'll live" Sakura said dryly

"How do you know?" Naruto said challengingly

"Because out of the two of us I'm the smarter one"

Naruto couldn't really argue that

 **Hokage tower**

"What is it you wanted to discuss with us Lady Tsunade?" Asuma asked as he, Kakashi, and Jiraiya stood in front of her.

"Well after Naruto's last check up I've found that he could do a mission outside of the village as long as he took it easy and there was no fighting." Tsunade said

"So you want to send Naruto out on a mission? What kind of mission is it Lady Tsunade?" Kakashi said

"An A rank"

"A WHAT?!" Kakashi looked like he was about to have a conniption

"Not a dangerous one, in fact the only reason they have that ranking is because of the importance placed on the mission, not the actual threat level itself." Tsunade said and after Kakashi visually calmed she continued.

"I want them to take the signed treaty to the Sand village for the new Kazekage to sign at his ceremony in 7 weeks. That's 6 weeks you have to prepare Naruto for a mission outside the village, I plan on sending Sakura and Shikamaru as well but I think this mission will do Naruto good and if they were attacked then the attacking party would risk incurring the wrath of two of the five great villages, I honestly do not believe that there is anyone alive that stupid" she said

"Still in case of an emergency I was wondering if there is anything you can teach Naruto that would help him in that situation?" she said looking at Kakashi who scratched his chin with a single finger.

"Gai did mention something we could teach Naruto, but it has its risks" he said

"You're not talking the 8 inner gates are you, because the 2nd gate could destroy the boy's lung and kill him!" Asuma said

"Actually once he's completely recovered he could go up to the third gate, but no it's not the 8 inner gates but something else entirely"

"What is it?" Jiraiya asked the silver haired Jounin.

 **If you want to find out tune in next chapter folks!**

 **I tried to make this the longest chapter I've done yet since this is my most read story I wanted to do this chapter to show you readers that I appreciate you for reading my story and sticking with me :)**

 **I have looked for a beta but haven't found one yet so if any of you are beta readers and want to give this a try PM me**

 **So D Rank missions, training, secret meetings and a new mission what will this lead to next!?**

 **Also Hinata made her reappearance in this story and it is revealed that she has essentially been training this whole time so we may see how much she has improved pretty soon, like maybe the next Chunin Exams ;)**

 **Sasuke, Orochimaru and Kabuto popped up in this as well.**

 **I plan for Naruto to head out of the Village next chapter, and the mission will take more than one chapter, plus this is Naruto we're talking about, he could be given the safest mission on Earth and it would still become life and death for him.**

 **Also I want to point out that you can essentially ignore most of what happened in Shippuden in this story as there was something's I liked and other things that I didn't and this will not be the same as Shippuden so if something was stated in Shippuden and it's different in here then I planned for it to be that way. One of the things I intend to be different is the Akatsuki, in the original Naruto series they were implied to be a group of Kage level ninja who essentially controlled the organized crime of the Elemental Nations but they were changed in Shippuden, so I intend to go with the Crime angle and in this I'll probably have them want the Tailed Beasts for a different reason. I may or may not also keep the 9 Tails/Kurama as evil, I haven't decided, because it feels like to me that they just became friends too fast and in a weird way, I also may have a slightly altered version of the origin of the Tailed beasts. I plan on keeping Sages and Sage mode though, even if the purpose of Sages are a bit different.**

 **Let me know your ideas on this.**

 **Now for Reviews YAY!**

 **TimothyB: Thanks for reading, hope you liked the chapter!**

 **Inaerion: actually if you look back on the Kaguya/Madara aside from the Rasenshuriken and Shadow Clone Jutsu he didn't really use anything else in the ninjutsu area except for Sage jutsu, Taijutsu, and Bojutsu. So if he focuses on just those last three he'd still have most of what he used in those fights, in fact the thing that made him a threat to them was his Sage Mode. I've been working on the spelling and everything but some Japanese words have multiple ways to spell them in, like Jujutsu has three different ways to spell it that I know of in English and they're all technically correct. As for seals, they are not explored a lot in the series and are said to be powerful, so it leaves fans a lot to work with and I do not plan on making seals OP though.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: I hope you liked the chapter and your right that it will take years for him to recover and the mission next chapter will be something that will help him in the long run. As for Sasuke's end? Who knows?**

 **Kyorose57: Thanks, actually I tried not to change her character much all I really did was take away the comedic hitting that was put in and that's what she turned into. However as you can see with this chapter she still has an attitude when pushed.**

 **Thank you all for reading, please Review and have a nice day!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto**

 **Chapter 10**

Naruto looked at the surrounding forest as he and his squad walked down the road.

Their team consisted of him, Sakura, Shikamaru, Naji and Ten Ten.

Originally it was just going to be him and Sakura and Shikamaru but Neji and Ten Ten had _literally_ begged for a mission.

Apparently Gai had this set period of time where he would do intense training for 1 whole month only allowing for an hour of rest a day. Sadly the team of genin had been forced to go through the gruesome training having not known about it, so _this_ year when Gai announced it to his students they didn't even hesitate to run to the Hokage tower to see if she had any missions that would take a month to complete, luckily they burst through the door right when she was giving Naruto's team their mission and she decided that they couldn't hurt the mission.

Lee was excited about the training.

So as the group of five marched on through the forest they were quiet for different reasons. Neji wasn't a talker and Ten Ten didn't really know any one well enough to start a random conversation, Shikamaru was thinking up what if situations that could arise on this mission and how to do them, Naruto was still studying one of the sealing scrolls trying to make heads or tails of it.

But Sakura was stuck with something that Jiraiya had told her.

 **FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

As Sakura walked towards her home she found a man blocking her way, she knew this man as Jiraiya of the Sanin and she was certain that this meeting was on purpose, what he wanted with her she didn't know.

"Hey Sakura nice night for a walk, right?" he said showing her a grin

"Yes it is Master Jiraiya" she said politely back, still wondering what this was about.

Suddenly the man's face turned serious

"I think we need to talk" he motioned for her to follow him into the park. Once there they stopped on a bridge over a small stream.

"What did you need to talk about?"

"Mainly, Scars" this confused Sakura but she figured he meant Naruto's scars, the most noticeable were his burn marks, if his sleeves or pants rose enough then you could still see them and his scar from the chidori was still red after all of these months.

"If you wanted to know about Naruto's scars then you should probably talk to Lady Tsunade" she said

"Not his, yours" Jiraiya said and Sakura felt like his eyes was looking in on every dark secret and thought she had.

"I don't have any scars" she said and she didn't, she had yet to be wounded enough that she would have a scar that medical ninjutsu couldn't remove.

"Maybe not physical ones but there are scars that are invisible to the human eye" he spoke sagely

Sakura remained quiet.

"It's plain to see that you hate Sasuke, but that hatred and grudge are meaningless" the Toad Sage told the girl.

"Meaningless, he almost killed Naruto!" she almost yelled

However the older man showed no reaction to her tone and evident anger.

"Tell me Sakura" he said calmly "How is that hatred benefitting you? Is it hurting Sasuke all the way in the Sound Village? Is it giving you incredible power to defeat any opponent?" he asked her making Sakura look unsure as she didn't have an answer.

"I've hated before but hatred is a poison that only harms you, and in the ninja world it can kill you as it clouds your mind and forces you to go down a path you don't want to. Eventually if you let hatred inside you you'll become just like Sasuke" he said

Sakura couldn't help but speak "I would never become like that monster" she said though she was unsure, she couldn't see how she could be willing to let her comrades, Naruto die just for hatred.

"You really think so?" Jiraiya asked. After seeing the girl nod he continued to speak "Why did Sasuke do all of the things he did? The answer is because of hatred. He hated his brother and wanted the power to get revenge, Sasuke was not always like that but over time as the hatred within him grew he became closer to the Sasuke he is now. If you do not let go of all that hatred and learn to forgive him then you'll never be able to move on and enjoy your life even if you kill him you'll never have closure and you'll never be happy"

Sakura just stood there in silence. She could see what he was saying and could even see that he was right but the idea of forgiving Sasuke… it was probably the hardest thing she could think of.

Jiraiya placed a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm not saying that you can't be angry about the injustice of it, but you shouldn't let that anger consume you and turn into hatred. I know that it won't be easy, hatred is easy but forgiveness, that's a lot harder."

And with that the Sage left the girl alone to her thoughts.

 **END OF FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

Even after three days that conversation was still in her head.

She looked over at Naruto, wondering how he could let things go so easily and forgive people. If the world was more like Naruto would it be a better place?

Her thoughts was interrupted by the voice of the other female member of their group.

"Hey Naruto what are you reading?" Ten Ten asked politely as she had finally decided to say something after seeing that her blond haired companion had what looked like a book on sealing.

"Oh, it's just something I have to finish before we get back to the village but these seals are hard to do" he said giving the book the evil eye.

"I actually know a good bit about seals myself I use storage seals and explosive tags so I've had to get pretty good at it" Ten Ten said

Naruto's eyes actually lit up a bit "Really, what kind do you use?"

And thus they began talking about seals and the other members of the group would admit that they understood barely any of what the two said.

Shikamaru had muttered "troublesome" at the racket going on behind him.

Sakura's eyes just went back and force between the two trying to pay attention to what was being said.

Neji just looked like Neji.

Finally after several hours of traveling through the forest they had made it near the border of the Land of Fire when Shikamaru decided to call it quits.

"C'mon Shikamaru we can keep going" Naruto said

Shikamaru just flashed Naruto an annoyed look "We're stopping because A) it's almost sunset and I do not want to be setting camp up in the dark and B) your breathing like a Dragon" and sure enough Naruto wasn't breathing as well as he should be.

After that they began to set up camp for the night while Sakura had Naruto remove his shirt so that she could use her Medical Ninjutsu to examine his lung and make sure everything was okay.

Naruto didn't like people looking at his injuries, why Sakura wasn't sure, so it was probably a good thing that everyone was behind them so Naruto didn't have to see them looking. Aside from her none of the other ninja their age had seen his scars, neither the chidori or the burn marks from the fire jutsu.

Shikamaru clenched his fists as he felt the guilt for Naruto's injuries make themselves apparent once more befor turning away and baniching the guilt, Naruto didn't blame him so why should he? Next time he would do better.

Ten Ten felt nauseous looking at the scarred up skin, the very idea of someone doing that to their teammate was something she couldn't begin to comprehend.

Neji wanted to show Sasuke just how effective and painful the Gentle Fist could be.

As they finished their dinner, a meal of scrambled eggs as that was something simple to fix, they suddenly all felt on edge. They weren't alone. Looking at each other Shikamaru nodded to Neji who activated his Byakugan.

"IT'S AN AMBUSH!" he yelled just as a group of around 25-30 men jumped out from the trees with kunai and swords.

"Alright everyone you know what to do!" Shikamaru said as they had discussed this very problem with rumors of a band of bandits running along the border between Fire and River.

Everyone began acting together with Shikamaru trapping people in his Shadow jutsu while Neji and Ten Ten dealt with those who avoided it while Naruto and Sakura held back in case someone became injured. It was an impressive plan, sadly there was more than what was originally thought.

About 15 more men came out of the forest near Naruto and Sakura and with the other members of their team preoccupied they were on their own.

It was then that Naruto thought back to what Gai and Kakashi had taught him.

 **FLASHBACK JUTSU!**

Naruto stood facing the two older jounin.

"Naruto, what we are about to teach you to do is impossibly dangerous" Kakashi said "But if it succeeds then it will be something useful for when your back is against the wall"

Kakashi let his words sink into Naruto. After seeing that the boy was paying attention he continued

"What I and Gai are going to teach you is simple but not easy. When you understand chakra you understand that chakra can be split into two distinct kinds. First there is the 'Light' chakra which is usually used more in Taijutsu, while 'Dark' chakra is more mental and is mostly associated with Genjutsu. When you combine these two in equal amounts you can use Ninjutsu. What we intend to do is transform your mental chakra into physical chakra, thus enabling you to temporarily fight with incredible physical power temporarily without risking your health. However this boost will only last 3-5 minutes afterwards you'll need to stop and rest."

Naruto nodded his head slowly as he took in what his sensei had said.

 **END OF FLASHBACK**

Naruto looked at the incoming attackers and remembered how Gai had told him to access the extra power he needed, as he reached down he felt the power surging through him and he felt strong like he use to before his attack.

To the oncoming bandits the blonde haired boy seemed to have a blue mist around him.

 _'_ _Have to beat them in 3 minutes'_ he thought to himself, he didn't want to push it and try 5.

He took a single step and then he went flying forward in a blur of motion. Five of the bandits went down within mere moments. Naruto was enjoying this, he felt stronger, faster and more agile. He slammed his kick into the face of yet another threat as he looked around at his friends fighting them off. Most of them were fine but there were some at the edge of the clearing that could overwhelm them. Quickly Naruto moved towards them taking out who he could. At this point it had almost been 2 minutes.

Most of the bandits had been taken down by the team of young ninja and it appeared that the fight wouldn't last much longer.

Suddenly a _CRASH!_ Filled the clearing and there stood a long haired man who was clearly a ninja by the weapons and equipment he was carrying.

He looked at the scene before him "I was wondering what took my men so long it appears that they chose some ninja brats to rob" he said shaking his head.

"You're the leader of these bandits?" Neji asked the man

"Sure am, but I'm afraid that I can't let you take them to the police so I'll just have to kill you" the man said plainly, almost like he was complaining about the weather

Suddenly Naruto ran towards the man and sent a punch into his chest, only to pull back in pain as it felt like his punch had been sent straight back up his arm and into his chest, causing him massive pain.

Naruto chastised himself, he still wasn't used to using his feet in a fight and would still have a punch slip through, and before now it was never a big deal.

The man looked at Naruto as his hands clutched over the right side of his chest.

"Odd, I wear a breastplate under my shirt to help protect against Taijutsu based attack, the way it works is that it takes the chakra from the attack and then sends it right back and the person who landed the hit. Usually it just stuns them or makes them sore but it seems like it hurt you more I wonder…" he looked at the boy clutching his chest before smiling sadistically "I see you have a chest injury that explains it, Pity though because now you'll be easier to kill" the man said pulling a Tanto from his belt

"NARUTO!" Sakura screamed looking on in fear, they were all too far away to get to him in time and Shikamaru was too low on chakra to send his shadow over that distance, still she began to run towards him with a kunai in her hand.

Naruto looked at the man with defiant eyes as he brought the blade towards him.

However, before it could land a blast of wind sent the man flying away from Naruto. Everyone just stood there in shock.

"Anyone who would get pleasure from killing children is automatically an enemy of mine" a voice said. Everyone looked to see someone new approaching them, he had on arm and leg guards and a piece of armor on his right shoulder. He had black hair and blue eyes and appeared to be in his early twenties. He carried a white staff with the words 'Justice' and 'Freedom' written on it and the Kanji for 'Iron' on his Shoulder piece. He carried a brown pouch on the back of his belt. The rest of his clothing was a blue shirt and black pants, unlike other ninja though he didn't have the traditional sandals that they wore but had on a pair of boots instead.

The long haired Ninja stood back up flashing the newcomer an evil glare.

"Your not a Leaf Ninja, what village are you from?" he asked, he may have been angry but he wasn't stupid enough to charge in blindly without any knowledge of this new enemy.

Sakura ran up to Naruto and cast the newcomer a cautionary glance. But he just smiled at her "Take care of your friend" he told her before taking a few steps towards the bandit leader, cocking his head as if confused by the question.

"Village? Oh I see the confusion" the man said sticking his staff out in front of him. "I'm not from a ninja village, actually I'm a Samurai from the Land Of Iron"

 **Done!**

 **The Samurai is an OC just to let you know, and I'm going to explore a bit more with the Samurai with him as we saw that some Samurai like Mifune were powerful like Kage level. I'm a bit iffy on the fight scene in this chapter and I hope it's okay.**

 **Thanks to The Merchant Of Blue Death for Beta Reading this.**

 **King of Konoha: I'm gonna have the Akatsuki be more like and organized crime group in the Elemental nations who are actually behind most of the criminal things in that world. I actually think that Sasori was weaker when he fought Sakura and Chiyo, sure he became stronger in some aspects when he became a puppet but often time in order to gain power you have to give up some as well.**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: Glad you liked the story! Sasuke is Showing more of his evil nature, and I actually like Sasuke's character, but I like him as a Villain to Naruto's Hero. A big part of this story is actually a moral argument between characters. From Sasuke** ** _'Whatever benefits me is good'_** **to Naruto** ** _'All Killing is wrong'_** **Sakura** ** _'Killing Sasuke to prevent him from killing in the future is necessary'_** **and as you saw in this chapter Jiraiya** ** _'Hatred is evil and therefore must be abandoned'_** **. Hinata has compressed her negative motions for so long that now she's unable to handle them well.**

 **Sakura Rules: While I'm not really bashing her I feel like we didn't see enough of her emotions like anger, jealousy and greed so I want to make her less perfect. So in this story she has tried to be perfect for so long and lock away her darker thoughts and feelings that now that she has let them out they're going wild. I plan on some interaction between Naruto, Sakura and Hinata after this part of the story so that'll be interesting to write.**

 **Thanks for Reading, Please Review and have a Nice Day!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

 **Chapter 11**

"A Samurai?" The bandit leader sneered "You're a long way from Iron aren't you"

The Samurai shrugged "I had business a little farther south of here and was on my way back when I came across you attacking these young children, and I just had to help" he said calmly in a way that reminded the two members of team or Kakashi nonchalant form of speech.

"Well I don't care who you are, you're dead!" the bandit ran at the Samurai with his sword ready, he jabbed it forward as he went straight towards the warrior…

Only for the Samurai to step to the left as the attack went right passed him, and sticking out his foot he caused the man to trip resulting in his face meeting the dirt.

"Careful, we don't want you to get hurt now"

The bandit got back up and readied his sword again. This time he ran forward and tried a slashing attack, however the Samurai leapt up over the attack and used the bandits back as a spring board, causing the bandit to go rolling. The bandit began to get up again only for the samurai to seemingly teleport over the distance before hitting him with his staff, dropping the man.

"Is everyone okay?" the man asked and that was the last thing Naruto saw before passing out. When he woke up again they were in a different clearing and it was night. He heard a crunching noise and looked over and saw the Samurai and Shikamaru playing a game of Shogi. Shikamaru noticed him first.

"Hey Sakura, Naruto's awake" a minute later and Sakura was over him performing some medical ninjutsu on him to check his vitals.

"I'm okay Sakura, it doesn't hurt too bad" he told her before turning to their guest "Who's this guy?" he said pointing at the Samurai.

"I'm called Okami by my fellow Samurai" Okami said as a response.

"And what are you doing here" Naruto asked

"If you must know I was tasked with transporting a trade document between my nation and one that is south of here. My mission is done so I was on my way back, why? What are you doing here?"

At his question everyone tensed up

The Samurai rolled his eyes before sighing "You ninja and your secrets, it's like your secrets have secrets." He got up and walked over to the fire where he stirred something in a pot.

"What happened to the guys who attacked us?" Naruto asked as he tried to sit up only for Sakura to make him lie back down.

"He and Neji took them to a nearby village where they were imprisoned." Shikamaru said before getting up "I'm going to keep an eye on this Okami guy, he appears to be an ally but you can never be too careful." Shikamaru stood and went to stand by the fire as well.

There was silence for a moment between the two teammates

"Do you have a death wish or something?" Sakura asked him.

"No but-"

"No 'buts', you would be dead if Okami hadn't saved you, what were you thinking!" she said

"We had to do something there was too many of them!" Naruto whispered back.

"Your injured Naruto, if you so much as get hit too hard in the chest your lung could be destroyed again and I don't have the ability to save you. We were lucky this time because the damage wasn't bad but what about next time? Do you know how badly that would hurt everyone if you died? How it would hurt me!?" She said and Naruto looked up at her and saw that tears were starting to come down her face.

He had made her cry, that was something he had never wanted to do.

"I'm sorry Sakura, I guess I just wanted to prove that I wasn't useless and I could still help on missions. I'll be more careful from now on; you won't have to worry about me Sakura"

Sakura didn't say anything except nod as she began to dig into her backpack. Naruto felt bad about upsetting Sakura and he'll admit that he hadn't been thinking things through completely when he had used the technique Kakashi and Gai had taught him, and maybe it hadn't been needed.

Then again there was that Samurai Okami to think about. He may not have been the best student in the academy but even he remembered that the Samurai from the Land of Iron had once gone two war with a few of the Great Shinobi Nations, there was no clear victors in the war and eventually the war ended in a peace agreement, one of the agreements was that ninja were forbidden from entering Iron unless given permission.

The reason he even remembered this was because he had a hard time believing that anyone could fight evenly with a ninja.

But he had to admit that the food he was cooking smelled terrific.

 **The Next Day**

They were already on their way when the sun rose the next morning.

Since Naruto had been injured again he couldn't move as fast as originally planned, add that into that Sakura telling Naruto to avoid combat completely, even light sparring.

Okami had decided to travel with them to the Land of Wind border.

Apparently he was a high ranking Samurai officer similar to a ninja Jounin and as part of the treaty with the 5 ninja nations of Fire, Wind, Earth, Water, and Lightning he couldn't enter their nations without express permission by those nations. So once they got across the border they would have to cross the desert to get to Suna on their own.

Naruto had opened his mouth to boast that they could do it when a glare from Sakura made him go quiet.

While everyone was busy doing various tasks to secure their camp for the night it left Okami and Naruto alone. Okami was once again cooking some kind of stew for dinner, and Naruto noticed that the Samurai was a very quiet person.

Finally Okami spoke

"So, mind telling me what happened to your chest?"

This question threw Naruto through a loop

"How did you know?"

Okami just raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like you or your teammates are hiding it, and the way your girlfriend worries over you says that she's worried about something happening again"

"She's not my girlfriend" Naruto said while Okami muttered a 'whatever' "And I don't see why you want to know"

Okami took a sip of some water he had "Maybe because I think we may be alike"

"How do you think that?" Naruto had never talked about his injuries with a stranger before and he avoided talking about it even with the people he was closest to.

"My guess is that you were injured, possibly by someone as close to you as family, and most people told you to just give up and live a safe life but you decided to give it your all to accomplish your goal. Am I right?"

Naruto said nothing but Okami continued talking.

"When I was a boy my family clan and the clan that was beside us were close allies and the leader of the neighboring clan was one of my fathers closest friends, he was like an uncle to me. Then when the former Samurai leader was forced to retire from age there was two people to take his place. My family sided with the now leader Mifune while our neighbors supported the other candidate. When Mifune won some of the opposing clans tried to overthrow him, it failed. But our once close allies attacked our village and my arm was hit with a poisoned spear during the attack and even though they said I would survive they said I would never be able to use my arm again. But I continued to train and improve myself until I got to the point where you can no longer tell I was injured in the first place."

After this Okami became quiet again.

"Does it still hurt?" Naruto asked

"Yep, usually once a day for up to an hour, but I'm used to it so I look at it as more of an annoyance now"

There was silence between the two once again for a while until Naruto spoke again.

"Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if I had stopped trying to be a ninja, I tried to help out back there but I ended up causing more problems than I solved"

"Sometimes things will come against you and it'll seem impossible to overcome them but usually once you get past it and you look back it doesn't look as frightening anymore."

Neji then popped up with the others following him soon.

"Stews done" Okami said almost as if the serious topic he and Naruto had been discussing had just evaporated "Come and get it or go hungry, it's your choice"

The Leaf ninja didn't fully trust the Samurai yet but he had yet to do or say anything to make them uneasy or suspicious.

But Naruto was feeling a bit more optimistic, Okami had once been in a similar situation as he was and had overcome it, so then he could too.

 **The next day**

"I thought I had escaped this!" Naruto complained from where he sat in a meditative position.

He sat with his jacket off and his right arm in a make shift sling where he had hurt his arm again, Sakura said he should only need to wear it for a day or two.

"You need to shut up" Okami told him "The main advantage that us Samurai had during our war with the ninja was that where you trained in stealth we trained in awareness, being able to detect things which normal humans cannot. Such as the number of insects in you immediate surroundings, the moment before your enemy attacks, and where ninja are hiding and you can't learn to do this if you are talking" he said sending the boy a sideways glare from where he stood leaning on a nearby tree

"Look, that sounds really awesome and all but can't I learn to do it some other way?" Naruto said

"No" Okami said "You need to focus on your senses, sharpen and hone them, then reach out and sense everything going on around you"

Naruto closed his eyes and began to try and focus on what was around him.

Then he felt Okami's staff hit him in the head

"What did you do that for!?" Naruto asked

"I said you needed to focus on all of your senses, including sight and get them to work together perfectly"

Naruto sighed at having to hold still and do something so boring.

 **Okay, so I just decided to do this chapter and show some back story on Okami as well as him training Naruto a little. I'm thinking about them running into some trouble next chapter, I don't know maybe.**

 **If any of you are fans of martial arts or comics then you may know what a proximity sense is, Daredevil is one of the most well known characters with it. I plan on that being something that the Samurai have managed to keep out of ninja hands so far and helping them to detect threats and ninja that are hiding.**

 **So what do you think about Okami?**

 **Onto Reviews!**

 **Thedarkpokemaster: Morality is going to be a part of the story because both Sasuke and Naruto have views that are contradictory.**

 **Wolfcoyote: hope you liked this chapter!**

 **TimothyB: I had a bit of writers block on this chapter but finally finished, sorry for the wait.**

 **Geraze90: Naruto will learn some Samurai techniques and he will improve in fuiinjutsu as well. As for the hiraishin? That might come in later chapters. Sakura will be learning new things as previously mentioned she has been training in kenjutsu and genjutsu as well. As for the wood style idea I don't think I'll go that route with Sakura as I just don't feel like putting that in this story.**

 **Thank you all for reading, please review and have a nice day!**


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